


The Witcher Soldier: Infinity

by AvoidingAverage



Series: The Winter Soldier AU [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Badass Jaskier, Depressed Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, End Game? Never heard of her, Established Relationship, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Heavy Angst, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Revenge, Soft Boys, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Winter Soldier AU, Witcher Wolf Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvoidingAverage/pseuds/AvoidingAverage
Summary: At first, he thinks the magic missed him. There was no pain or any vibration from his medallion to indicate something had struck him. It didn’t explain the wave of power or the sinking sensation in his gut.He turned at the sound of footsteps and watched the Jaskier step toward him, looking strange.Those eyes the color of sunlight skies met his a moment before he went grey all over and collapsed into ash.________________________The third installment of the Witcher Soldier which will only sort of follow the plot of Infinity War.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Winter Soldier AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693594
Comments: 72
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ask and you shall receive! Enjoy this third installment of the Witcher Soldier verse and prepare yourself for some good old fashioned angst.
> 
> But first, I couldn't resist letting Jaskier enjoy his newfound family.

“Bend your knees more.”

“I  _ am _ bending my knees.”

The fierce growl fell on deaf ears as the scarred Witcher pushed Ciri’s shoulder abruptly, watching her fall over with a muffled curse. “That wouldn’t have happened if you were balanced properly,” Eskel explained calmly.

Ciri grumbled irritably and scowled when it only caused Eskel to stop trying to hide his smirk. “This is  _ boring _ ! When am I going to get to actually use something  _ useful _ ”

From the side of the practice ring, Geralt watched his child surprise argue with his brother with a fond smile. They’d spent the better part of the winter beginning Ciri’s training with the other members of the Wolf School. Each morning, Ciri woke with Geralt and the others to jog the well worn path around the keep before starting their strength and agility training. Eskel had been given the daunting task of working on her form while Vesemir resided over the task of training her in monsters and lore. In the afternoon, Yennefer would bring his cub to the old dining hall where she practiced honing the magic that simmered in her veins.

She was getting stronger every day. Already her speed and agility would be enough to keep her safe from most humans, but the little cub was fierce. She wouldn’t be content with the simple practice steps for long.

“Did they just start arguing?” a familiar voice murmured from beside him, making him jump. “That’s got to be a new record.”

Geralt turned to find Jaskier settling in beside him with his hair still sleep rumpled. He was dressed in a too large shirt that hung nearly to his thighs over a well worn pair of pants. The Witcher’s heart lurched oddly when he recognized the shirt as one of his own and caught sight of pale collar bones exposed by the loose collar. The bard looked warm and relaxed in a way Geralt had never thought possible again.

It made him want to cradle him close and protect him from the world.

“The cub wants to start using her own blades,” Geralt replied after a beat where he focused on gathering his wandering thoughts. 

Jaskier gave her a considering look. “She’s not ready yet. She needs more discipline.”

The quiet confidence in each word was still a strange new aspect to his bard. The Jaskier of his memories had preferred to leave the fighting to Geralt outside of tavern brawls. Now he was living with a version of his bard that watched the Witchers move with jaded eyes, mentally calculating each weakness he could use against them.

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

A quick twist of his lips and the bard he knew was back. “Are you afraid of her, Witcher?”

“Everyone should be.” Geralt watched his child surprise stick out a foot in time to trip Eskel when he walked past her and snickered. “She’ll take over the world one day.”

“I suppose it’s a good idea to get on her good side now then.”

Geralt hummed under his breath and tilted his head to eye Jaskier. “I’m surprised to see you awake so early. Do you have another session with Yennefer?” 

“Not today. She’s meeting with Tris for something.”

Neither of them acknowledged the way both of them relaxed slightly at the words. Yennefer’s ‘sessions’ with Jaskier left the bard drained and gaunt, his eyes dark with dread. It took significant energy and concentration to dig through the layers of magic and pain that had been used to create the Soldier’s mentality. The Soldier still appeared if Jaskier felt stressed or was startled by something, like it wanted to protect Jaskier. Sometimes it was the Soldier who limped up the stairs to Geralt’s chambers and stood guard silently in the darkness like a living reminder of Stregobor’s sins.

Most days Yennefer’s magic left Jaskier unable to do more than curl up beside Geralt in their large bed and hide away from the world. The best days were always days like today--when Jaskier walked without the wary tension in his shoulders and smiled back at Geralt. 

“I wonder what Tris wants,” Geralt murmured as Ciri fell back into position begrudgingly.

“If it involves Yenn it’s nothing good.”

“Hmm.” The Witcher pushed off the railing that circled the training ring and rolled his shoulders to ease some of the stiffness from staying still too long. 

Jaskier watched him move with a glint of interest in his eyes. He nodded his chin towards the row of practice weapons that were lined up at the edge of the area and arched a daring eyebrow at Geralt. “Do you want to give it a try?”

“You want to spar?” Geralt asked, startled.

A shrug. “I’m tired of sitting around all day. I need the practice.”

Neither of them mentioned the fact that the request was something the bard would never have made. Jaskier had never been interested in bloodshed or violence unless it was required to protect the people he cared about--especially Geralt. The Soldier, however, craved violence because it was what it had been created to do.

But Jaskier was smiling at him with nothing but mischief in his eyes and Geralt didn’t want to be the reason that ever went away.

“Are you sure?” he had to ask.

“Are you frightened, dear heart?” Jaskier teased with another heart stopping grin, “I promise I’ll go easy on you.”

Geralt gave a mock growl for his impudence and swatted at him. The bard dodged it easily and walked over to the row of weapons, looking them over with a calculating expression. Hesitating still, the Witcher stood beside him, unable to decide whether to trust Jaskier’s autonomy or his own knowledge of his own mind.

Jaskier seemed to sense why Geralt was so quiet because he let himself brush against Geralt’s side in a comforting sweep of warmth. “You can’t protect me forever,” he whispered.

“I can try.”

A soft hum and brush of lips against the stubble of his jaw made his slow heart race. “One of these days you’ll let me protect you too.”

Geralt turned his head to chase the warmth of Jaskier’s lips. “I’m a Witcher--I don’t want you to be around anything strong enough to hurt me.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Jaskier said staunchly. “Now pick your weapon.”

Without waiting to see what Geralt chose, Jaskier grabbed a short sword and walked over to an empty space in the training grounds far enough away from Ciri and Eskel that they wouldn’t be in the crossfire. Judging by the way both of them immediately paused their training to watch with matching curious expressions, it was an unnecessary precaution. Geralt grabbed a sword without looking and went to where the bard was waiting for him.

They stood across from one another in an unwilling mimicry of the times they’d fought before. The difference this time was the steady smile on Jaskier’s face that matched the easy confidence lingering in every movement. It was a clear contrast to the Soldier’s dead-eyed violence.

Maybe that was the point.

“Eskel, darling,” Jaskier called without looking away, “do you mind keeping score?”

Geralt’s lips twisted into a smile despite his worry and he raised his sword in a simple salute. “So modest.”

“I’m the most modest man in all the land.”

Ciri and Eskel’s snort of laughter rang like a starting gun across the courtyard and Jaskier lunged forward in a blur of speed. Geralt barely managed to get his sword up before Jaskier’s weapon was bashing into his, rolling off the guard to slash at his open side. He spun away, trying for some breathing room, but Jaskier pressed forward with that dazzling speed.

It was like the first time they’d fought all over again. Jaskier, fast and agile enough to leave Geralt perpetually on the defensive. The only difference now is he could see the way the bard’s lips were twisting into a mischievous smirk as he forced the Witcher back to the tune of their audience’s cheers.

Then there was cold steel at his throat and a dazzling smile leveled at him.

“My point.”

Geralt batted it away with a growl and started forward without waiting for the signal to start. He bullied the other human across the arena in a mockery of the last quick bout. Jaskier was forced to use a few of the flashy moves that had made him so fearsome as an assassin. Their swords met in a complicated dance that let them both panting and sweat soaking into their shirts.

Somewhere along the line it became less about trying to score another point and more about enjoying the give and take of a well-matched fight.

Jaskier’s blade caught his own in a complicated twist that sent Geralt’s sword arcing out of his hand to land in the dirt a few yards away. The bard’s eyes flicked to his with triumph, but Geralt was already moving.

Ducking beneath the still outstretched blade, he ducked his shoulder and tackled Jaskier around his waist in a graceful leap, rolling so the impact didn’t harm him. They grappled on the ground for a few minutes more before surprise and size left Jaskier panting up at him from his back in the dirt.

“You cheated!” he accused.

Geralt gave him a smirk. “I won.”

Blue eyes went dark with the kind of promise that made an answering flush curl in Geralt’s gut. “And what do you win, Witcher?”

“You.”

Slowly, Geralt leaned forward to taste the smile still creasing the other man’s lips. His fingers curled through dark hair as Jaskier let his head tilt with the motion until their mouths tangled in a slick glide. He nibbled the edge of one full bottom lip and tried to ignore the urge to rut against the warm hips pressed against his.

Somewhere nearby Ciri made a gagging sound.

* * *

Geralt padded into the mess hall behind Jaskier and Ciri, smiling at their exultant recreations of the fight between the two of them. The bard’s hands fluttered around in dramatic bursts as he recreating his version of the battle. Each wild gesture and facial expression felt like its own homecoming; a reclamation of the man who’d disappeared beneath Stregobor and Dagan’s darkness.

He let them move ahead of him in favor of walking over to the kitchens to raid the pantry for the bread he’d seen Nora and Tanis setting aside for dinner. The two humans had settled into life at Kaer Morhen with uncanny grace. Nora’s stint in Dagan’s keep hadn’t been enough to slow her determination to keep Jaskier safe or transfer that protectiveness to the other Witchers in the keep. Geralt had caught Lambert lingering before breakfast to help with food prep for the past week; a fact he preferred not to think about whenever possible. 

He wasn’t sure who’d gut the other Witcher first--Tanis or Jaskier--if they found him chasing after Nora.

For his part, Geralt felt more settled here than he’d ever been. Ciri was safe. Jaskier was safe. Yennefer was still terrifyingly competent and more than prepared to keep away anyone who would threaten any of the humans sheltered here. His brothers and Vesemir seemed equally baffled by the expansion of their strange family and he’d caught them more than a few times trailing behind them like scarred ducklings.

The sound of sharp voices made him pause before he’d reached his destination and search for the culprits. 

“--impossible,” Vesemir growled, sounding more weary than Geralt had ever heard them.

“We need to be sure.”

Geralt closed the distance between himself and the small alcove where the mage and the oldest Witcher were huddled together with a frown. “What’s going on?”

Vesemir leaned back and rubbed a hand over his face, but it was Yennefer who answered.

“Tris has a report that the Viper School was attacked.”

Images of blood spilling over familiar stones and familiar bodies flashed behind his eyes. He took a slow breath in and released it evenly before he spoke. “By whom?”

“We don’t know,” Yennefer answered with another deep frown, “No one has come forward to take responsibility.”

“How many survivors?”

“None.”

“ _ None _ ?” he gasped, looking between Vesemir and Yennefer incredulously. “How big of an army was sent?”

The mage flicked her fingers in the direction of the weathered map spread across the table. “That’s where this gets stranger--Tris said none of her informants and allies at the courts nearest to the school have reported any unknown forces moving through the area.”

“What about mages using portals?”

This time it was Vesemir shaking his head. “They would never have made it through their wards. I know Marric, their leader. He would never have allowed such a thing to happen without at least sending an alert to the rest of us.”

The thought of a small enough force to go unnoticed successfully defeating a band of Witchers in their home was just, “ _ Impossible _ .”

“I’ve tried to contact the other Schools, but none of them are responding.”

“Do you think they were attacked by the same group?”

“We need to see for ourselves,” Vesemir said with a hint of finality. He looked over at Yennefer, “Would you be willing to take me there?”

She nodded. “I admit, I’m more than a little curious.”

“Then it’s settled. Geralt, you stay here with the others. I don’t want to risk Jaskier being sighted by someone who was at the auction. We’ll return in three days.”

Geralt nodded, grateful for the excuse to keep Ciri and Jaskier within the safety of the keep. 

“Hurry back.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the chapter you've all been waiting for. Get ready to hurt.

Something was bothering Geralt. 

He was hiding it, of course, like any self respecting emotionally repressed Witcher must, but Jaskier recognized the signs. Even with the scrambled brain left behind by Stregobor and fucking Dagan, he knew something had set off the White Wolf. Something to do with the new lines of worry around Yennefer and Vesemir’s faces. And the way both of them had left without saying where they are going.

“I’ll be back soon, little one,” Yennefer had promised into Ciri’s soft hair with something in her expression that might be adoration on a weaker woman.

Ciri had only tightened her hold, unnaturally silent. It wasn’t until her eyes drifted over to Jaskier that he remembered what had happened the last time the two were separated. 

The Soldier had nearly killed her.

The memories of that night were distant in a way Jaskier had no intention of pulling closer. He remembered the anticipation that grew with each step on the trail of the dark haired sorceress. His handler’s irritation when he’d returned empty handed and forced them to make a portal to send him to where she’d disappeared. A flash of white hair and familiar eyes fixed on him. Pain.

Mouth flattened into a thin line, Jaskier left the two of them to their goodbyes and let the guilt tighten around his throat like a noose. Once, he might have attempted to console Ciri or charm Yennefer into a smile, but it was different when _he_ was the source of their nightmares. Whatever comfort he might have managed in his life before the mountain was unattainable now with the blood stains marring his hands.

Geralt lingered in the doorway, expression dark as he watched Yennefer and Vesemir say their goodbyes. There were sagas and epics lurking beneath the dull gleam of gold, hinting at the tragedy Jaskier could feel lurking like a snake at the edges of the room. Their only hope was that they would be prepared when it struck.

Jaskier watched them leave with the Soldier’s eyes and wondered how long it would be before the monsters found them again.

* * *

Art by the lovely Khanson

They didn’t talk about this. Didn’t talk about how Jaskier’s tense shoulders eased as soon as Geralt stepped through the bedroom door or the way he didn’t feel like he could _breathe_ until he could fill his lungs with the scent of leather and sweat and the faintest hint of magic. 

It was nothing like their relationship before the world had begun to spin in a new direction. Before Jaskier had fallen and dragged himself back as a broken and newly burdened man. 

Maybe it was a good thing. 

After all, it was only in the bard’s wildest imaginings that the White Wolf ever looked past the gorgeous curves of a mage to acknowledge the man who looked at him like a flower to the sun. Delicate. Fragile. _Desperate_. 

Some nights he’d stay awake late into the night to linger in the soft breaths of the Witcher sleeping next to him and relish in this strange new reality. A reality where Jaskier could look out at Geralt with his heart in his eyes and be met with a gentle smile. One where the heart of the Whire Wolf belonged to him. 

_Mine_ , thought Jaskier. 

_Ours_ , agreed the Soldier. 

And therein lay the source of all of Jaskier’s secrets. When he’d arrived at Kaer Morhen, he’d hoped that Yennefer’s efforts would separate him from the Soldier--if only because it would make Geralt happy. He didn’t want to risk hurting anyone. He didn’t want to risk someone forcing him to kill again. He didn’t want to lose himself.

The problem was he wasn’t sure if he _could_ survive without the darkness lingering always at the back of his mind. Where the bard had been all emotion and reckless courage, the Soldier was unflappable calm and focus. They balanced one another. Jaskier didn’t want to think about how he could manage the barrage of memories of blood and pain that could be triggered by sounds and even smells.

The Soldier, he knew, had all the tools and training to keep the people he loved safe. Without a handler forcing them to hunt, to kill, the Soldier was content to remain a quiet presence in the keep. The fight with Geralt had proven that he wouldn’t harm the Witcher. It had triggered a slowly growing appreciation for the warrior’s skill that had merged easily with Jaskier’s adoration into the closest thing to love the assassin was capable of.

If they were careful, the Witcher didn’t need to know how often the Soldier looked out through Jaskier’s eyes. 

Their mutual fixation on the warrior gave them something to be _better_ for. They couldn’t collapse beneath the weight of the table and the pain that struck like lightning each time Stregobor touched them. They could be the monster lurking in the dark if it meant keeping away creatures that might try to break the ones they cared about. 

For now he could relish in the sensation of Geralt’s even breathing against his chest and the way the scent of leather and magic and power seemed to permeate everything around him. He could close his eyes and know he was miles away from anyone who wanted him dead. Just sink into skin-warm sheets and know that Geralt would wake him if his nightmares crept too close.

They could talk about whatever this was another day.

* * *

Later, when the world had burned to ash, he hadn’t clung a little harder to Geralt when he still could.

* * *

In songs, there might be a key change or a shift in tone to warn you that something was about to happen. Reality, he’d discovered, was rarely that kind. 

It started with Eskel.

The Witcher had gone out early to try to break in a new knife he’d bought on his way up back to Kaer Morhen. It wasn’t quite balanced, but the metal was forged well enough that the older Witcher had decided it was worth the effort of adjusting to it. Geralt and Lambert had teased him about the hassle, but the scarred, quieter warrior had only shrugged and told them in no uncertain terms where they could shove their opinions.

Jaskier was walking across the courtyard to try to find Eskel so he could call the Witcher in for lunch when he heard a sharp crackle like a log hitting the fire along with the smell of ozone. It made him pause, unable to ignore the well-trained urge to assess each noise for potential threats. The Soldier’s awareness lingered like a miasma at the edges of his mind, but he didn’t let it overwhelm him yet.

There was a crackle of energy that coalesced into the sharp edges of a gateway. 

At first, he turned, expecting Yennefer to step through the portal opening at the center of the courtyard. His mind flashed back to the worry that had deepened the lines around Geralt’s expressive mouth and hoped that the news Yenn and Vesemir brought back would help ease that unspoken anxiety. 

He should have known better.

Dark figures coalesced amidst the chaotic power and moved forward to step out onto the broken and ancient cobblestones. At their center stood a man bearing the familiar sigil of a mage unattached to the great schools of Ben Ard and Aretuza. Around him, a growing crowd of sleek looking males and females had Jaskier easing smoothly into a more defensive position and the Soldier rising.

It didn’t take much effort to identify the crowd as less than human. Their movements were too quick, too graceful for humanity. They watched him with eyes that caught the light in strange ways, swallowing the weak sunlight within the shadows of their expression. Their bodies were coiled tight like bows, muscles tense with the need to pounce. One of the males let his jaw hang open to expose jagged looking teeth. Every inch of them screamed predator in a way that made the Soldier want to bare his teeth in challenge. 

He opened his mouth to shout an alarm, but the mage brought his hands together in a clap that resonated like a gong through the stillness of the mountains. It ensured that the Witchers would be arriving quickly to defend their keep and confirmed Jaskier’s growing suspicions that this was no random visit.

“Jaskier!” Geralt’s voice cried out over the sound of pounding footsteps heading their way.

The Soldier didn’t let his eyes stray from the group in front of him, cataloguing each element and filing it away for use in the fight that was coming. 

While the mage appeared to be just like any other member of his kind, a more cautious analysis of the others proved they were more than they appeared. None of them appeared to need to breathe and didn’t bother to carry any weapons besides the inhuman nails tapering from their fingertips. Dark stains dropped onto the courtyard in splatters of iron and misery. What could possibly draw so many creatures into a den of Witchers could hardly be good.

Before he could warn anyone, Geralt was skidding to a halt beside him with his sword outstretched in an aggressive barrier. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked the mage.

It was obvious that the Witcher was barely restraining the urge to keep Jaskier far away from the fight. The habit of protecting the vulnerable bard would probably never fully disappear, but he appreciated the effort to acknowledge Jaskier’s current abilities. The Soldier rewarded the thought by slipping the second sword out of its sheath on Geralt’s back and flanking the other warrior like a silent shadow. 

The humanlike creatures slowly spread out into a half circle around the mage, subtly flanking the two of them. He counted at least a dozen of them before the portal finally snapped closed. Jaskier’s experience on the Path had him guessing that they were some sort of higher vampire, but he couldn’t think of a reason why the normally solitary creatures might want to work with a human mage. 

“You don’t know me, do you?” The man said to Geralt with a slightly curious tone and a small smile. The expression didn’t falter as Eskel sprinted over from the stables to stand on Geralt’s other side. “That’s a shame...it’ll make it so much harder to understand what comes next.”

Geralt opened his mouth to respond, but the mage only gestured with one hand and the creatures surrounding him lunged forward like race horses at the sound of the starting horn.

Two barreled into Eskel and the big Witcher went down with a curse and flare of magic. They hit the side of the practice ring with a jarring thud that sent splinters spinning through the air. There was a flash of a metal blade before the distinct snap of jaws seeking purchase in flesh. Jaskier couldn’t do more than watch it happen in the corner of his eye before he was forced to focus on the higher vampires rushing towards him and Geralt. 

The first lunged after him without bothering to add inhuman speed—no doubt assuming he was human—and Jaskier rewarded the oversight with a quick movement that sent his borrowed blade deep into the creature’s chest. The momentary success left him open for a backhanded slash that sent him stumbling back. He let the momentum tug the blade free from the first creature’s chest and ducked low, avoiding another set of claws and dragging the edge across the tendons and ligaments at the ankle.

Screaming with a mixture of rage and pain, the vampire went down hard. It’s hands ripped and tore at his clothing, digging bruises into the flesh beneath. The Soldier ignored it--pain was a distraction. They rolled across the courtyard, the creature hissing in fury, and the Soldier silent as the death he was created to mete out.

The sword was lost in the tumble and he replaced it easily with the knife he’d stashed in one of his boots. He sank it into the beast’s gut and grinned ferally up at him when the action caused it to scream loud enough to drown out the sounds of chaos all around them. It lunged forward to rip into his neck, but he managed to jerk to the side so the beast’s mouth clamped shut around the meat of his shoulder. Biting back his own cry of pain, Jaskier ignored the blood dripping down his chest to pull his knife free and sank it into the vampire’s neck while it was distracted.

All around him, the sounds of struggling gave the Soldier the adrenaline he needed to pull the dying vampire off of him so he could force himself to stand. The courtyard seemed to be full of shrieking monsters and the occasional growl of one of the Wolves. Jaskier looked up at the keep, but didn’t see any sign of Ciri or even Lambert. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad news. It was bad enough that the safety of Kaer Morhen had so quickly been destroyed by the vampires currently trying to kill everyone he loved.

In the midst of it all, stood the mage.

The thought of the pain the mage had created was enough to have Jaskier pulling his knife free with a low noise of fury. He flipped the blade over once, transferring to his uninjured hand. He didn’t want to risk missing the mage while he had the opening and Stregobor’s trainers had ensured he was just as capable of killing when injured. It was a marker of how fucked up this day had become that he was almost grateful. 

To his left, he heard Geralt make a rough sound of pain as three of the vamps slung him to the ground and pinned him in place bodily. The Witcher snarled and bucked, trying to fight against their hands when they dug in painfully. Jaskier turned, fighting against the Soldier’s focus on killing the mage. 

_We can’t let them hurt him_ , he thought.

_Ours_ , the Soldier begrudgingly agreed.

Hesitation cast aside, they sprinted in the direction of the struggling warrior, connecting bodily with the two closest creatures. Before they could recover, he’d already sank his knife into the soft space at the join of one neck and yanked hard enough to send a spray of foul smelling blood through the air. The next went flying thanks to a kick to the gut.

Geralt had used the opening to finish off the other and took the opportunity to down one of his foul smelling potions that caused black lines to bleed around his eyes. Golden eyes met blue in a moment that had relief bleeding through concern and Jaskier taking the first deep breath since the mage had stepped into the courtyard.

Which was his first mistake.

Because Jaskier was so focused on Geralt, he was not watching the mage. The mage who until this very moment had been uninterested in the fight, but was now ready to make his move.

It started with Eskel.

Eskel, who’d finally gone down beneath the group of vampires sent out with a quick nod by the mage. They ripped into the exposed skin above his leather armor and he roared in pain even as the wounds weakened his struggles. Geralt spun toward the sound, devastation on his face, but the mage was already there.

He walked through the creatures without fear, leaning over the Witcher without a shred of interest in the man’s snarls and attempts to break free. One hand reached out toward the mangled remains of his neck in a mockery of a caress. His fingers turned red with the blood still seeping from the open gash across his neck to trail down the collar of his shirt until he felt metal. With a yank, he tugged it free from Eskel’s neck and stepped away.

The Witcher’s medallion hung between his fingers like a trophy.

Time seemed to go slow and disjointed.

The mage smiled, amused, despite the way Geralt was roaring in fury and trying to rush forward. Magic crackled through the air and the vampires turned toward it like moths to a flame. They ignored the Witcher and the Soldier in their midst in favor of slinking closer to the mage with eager expressions.

Jaskier frowned, edging closer to Geralt as the mage finally focused on the two of them. “It’s too late,” he crooned. “I am inevitable.”

His words sent a bolt of fear through the Soldier and he ached for the knife that he’d lost in the fight. Maybe he could have stopped what happened next.

Geralt rushed forward as the mage raised his hands, unfamiliar words dropping like stones from his lips.

Power hummed through the air until it seemed to rattle the very stones around them and the sound of it made him want to cover his arms until the ringing stopped. He stepped forward dizzily, but he already knew he was too far away to stop the spell before it broke over them. Geralt reached out with one hand, fingers tracing a familiar sign, as the mage raised his fingers--

And _snapped_.

The sound shot through the air like an explosion. The Soldier was thrown back against the wall behind him hard enough to have dark spots dancing through his vision. He gasped like a fish, trying to drag enough air back into his lungs so he could get back to his feet. Dust clouded the air around him and he blinked away the dirt with a wince.

Distantly he heard the portal flicker back to life and saw the mage and his pack of vampires step through. 

“G--Geralt…” he rasped and coughed to clear his throat. “Geralt!”

At first, he thought the magic missed them. There was no new pain to indicate something had struck him or caused any new destruction. It left him without an explanation of the wave of power or the sinking sensation in his gut. 

He turned at the sound of footsteps and watched the Geralt step toward him, looking strange. Whatever relief he might have felt died a quick death at the expression on the warrior’s face.

Bright eyes flicked up to the Witcher as he gave a full body shudder mid-step. “Geralt?” Jaskier repeated, an unasked question in the word. 

Geralt took another step towards him and stretched out his arm towards the bard. “Jaskier?” he rasped.

They both stared in horror as his outstretched hand went grey before their eyes, shriveling and fading like ash after the fire burned low. 

Jaskier found himself on his feet, stumbling forward like he could stop this nightmare if he could just reach the Witcher in time. Geralt’s next step wobbled and he went to his knees as the grey traveled up his arm and across his chest. 

_No_ , Jaskier thought desperately, _not this_.

He must have screamed, must have made some sort of inhuman sound of grief, because those eyes the color of sunlight met his a moment before Geralt went grey all over and collapsed into ash. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof.
> 
> Did you see the twist coming?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the angst train.

This was…

This wasn’t real. 

It  _ couldn’t _ be real. 

Jaskier had imagined Geralt’s death so many times after all. Bloodied and painful at the hands of some creature after he’d moved too slowly. Shocked and betrayed with the Soldier’s hands around his throat. Even of old age, long after Jaskier had been forgotten. 

Never like this. 

He made a noise. Some terrible, wounded sound that burned in his throat like poison and dug deep beneath his skin like claws. Only this time there was no one to answer him. 

It was the same silence that came after a lightning strike, as though the earth itself could only tremble in the wake of such devastation. The ragged breaths ripping through his chest was just like the wind threading through the courtyard, spreading the, the—

He stumbled forward, falling to his knees without caring about how much it made him ache. His shaking fingers brushed through the grey ash as though he could find the traces of Geralt hidden beneath. A jaded part of him could only think about their conversation so long ago when Geralt had warned him of a Witcher’s retirement. Except Jaskier had never imagined that day coming before his own demise.

An icy numbness spread from where his knees rested against the cold stones. Teartracktrack dried against his skin as he slowly, methodically dragged his fingers through the grey dust so it formed a small pile. It clung to his hands to mix with the black blood left behind by the corpses rotting at the edges of his vision. Someone would need to gather them to be burned soon. 

Not Geralt though. There was nothing they could even bury. 

Jaskier clung to the blank calm of the Soldier like a lifeline. His soul felt like it was battering against the confines of his body until he was nearly vibrating with the urge to fall apart. Somehow his hands continued to pull together the fragile memories of Geralt’s life until his hands were stained grey with ruin.

“I loved you.” He whispered the words into the ash like sun over barren earth, knowing no life would spring forth. “I love you.”

It should have been enough. A bard would have believed that love would be enough. 

A soldier knew better. 

* * *

The sound of footsteps jarred him out of the strange nothingness he’d sunk into. He didn’t bother to reach for a weapon. It was impossible to imagine a pain worse than each heartbeat without Geralt drawing breath. 

“Gods—Jaskier!” The voice was familiar enough that he let himself slip back beneath the icy stillness that had kept him safe from the worst of reality. Hands reached for his shoulders, jostling him to turn toward Nora. “Are you hurt? We’ve been looking for you for ages. Where are the others?”

The name made him shudder violently, but it wasn’t until liquid dropped onto the flagstones that he realized he was crying. He raised a finger to the bloodied streaks across his cheeks, trying to remember if he’d cried in all the years Stregobor had held him. 

“Jaskier!” Tanis sounded like she’d aged decades since this morning and he looked up to see her cross the courtyard with Ciri tucked against her side. He wished he was whole enough to feel relief that they weren’t hurt. “Jaskier,” her eyes were sharp with worry when she called him again, “are you with us?”

Are you still you? She didn’t ask. 

He shrugged. He didn’t know if there was a way to be Jaskier without his Witcher. 

Nora stood next to Jaskier and scanned the yard. “Did...where are the other wolves?”

Eskel, he thought with a new shock of grief at the memory of the scarred Witcher being pinned beneath the vampires. It was enough to slowly force himself back to his feet. Geralt would want him to make sure his brothers were safe.

The movement reminded him that he hadn’t left the skirmish unharmed when he was forced to favor his left leg and a sharp pain bloomed in his side. The Soldier knew how to continue fighting through much worse.

There was a fierce sort of satisfaction at the sight of the bodies left behind by the mage. His vampires hadn’t fared well against the Witchers even with the element of surprise on their side. Geralt must have killed four on his own while Jaskier was distracted and Eskel brought in another handful before his collapse.

Jaskier made his way to the stable wall where he’d last seen Eskel. He reached the bodies of two vampires still reaching out as though they were still trying to pin the Witcher into the earth. One of them twitched and he didn’t hesitate to raise his booted foot and brought it back down with barely restrained violence, pleased by the snap of its neck. Whatever satisfaction he might have gotten from the momentary vengeance died a quick death.

There, at the center of the beasts, was a pile of grey dust.

The sight of it felt like a blow. He reeled backwards, shaking his head like a child rejecting the reality of this nightmare.

_ Please _ , he thought wildly,  _ let this all be a dream _ . Let this be another one of Stregobor’s torments and let him wake up back on the table as the Soldier. Geralt would be alive and Jaskier would know better than to ever come near him again. He could live and die as the Soldier without ever destroying Geralt in the process.

_ Mine _ , he grieved.

_ Ours _ , the Soldier whispered back.

Ciri stepped out of the shelter of Tanis’ arms and walked closer to where Jaskier stood silently. She brushed her finger over his arm before flinching away like she could sense the poison lurking beneath his skin. “Are they all…?”

He turned away from her.

“Lambert...he, he tried to protect us,” Nora said, voice shaking. “Geralt told him to stay with us while he got you. One of those monsters broke through the window and tried to rush for Ciri, but Lambert fought it. We thought he was fine, but…”

“He turned to dust, right in front of us,” Tanis finished. 

Jaskier turned towards her like a bloodhound to a scent, trembling with the childish urge to let her comfort him like a child. But there was no escaping the reality he’d found himself in.

“Where’s Geralt?” Ciri asked desperately.

His mouth opened to form the name he’d spent years calling, but couldn’t seem to let the sound escape. Hot tears dripped down his cheeks at the injustice of it all. To lose Geralt after only just having found him again. To watch the first taste of safety and peace be ripped away just when he was beginning to believe it was true.

“Ciri,” Tanis called, “go inside with Nora and see if you can contact Yennefer and Vesemir. Jaskier and I will clear away the bodies.”

The words were firm, precise as any general on a battlefield. Any grief she felt was already tucked behind the realities that they now faced. The Witchers were gone. Whoever the mage was, he knew how to break through the wards at Kaer Morhen and could come back with more beasts to finish the rest of them off. 

Ciri looked like she wanted to protest, but Nora had been trained since childhood to trust that Tanis knew what needed to be done so she towed the younger girl toward the kitchen. He heard them whispering quietly as they went, but he couldn’t bring himself to try to understand what was said.

Then Tanis was looking at him with an unreadable expression. “Jaskier,” she said like the name still held meaning, “are there any of these creatures left alive?”

He looked toward her a little desperately, swaying like a tree in a storm. His eyes drifted to the grey ash at her feet.

“I will stay with Geralt. Bring me one of the creatures.”

Slowly, he straightened, latching on to the implied command like it could anchor him to the earth.

He stalked over to the closest of the creatures, pulling a blade free from one of the carcasses without a word. The blade dragged against the ground with a grating sound that echoed around the too-still courtyard. Taking a breath, he focused through the grief drowning in his lungs and forced himself to turn his senses outward. 

There. A soft exhalation.

The vampire had enough time to try to get to its feet before Jaskier was on him. His borrowed blade sang through the air like a lament and buried itself into the meat of the creature’s thigh. It screamed, high and jagged, but he ignored it as he prowled forward.

“ _ Don’t-- _ ” It cried when he yanked it up by an arm, noting distantly that the movement ripped the blade through the meat of its thigh to splatter dark blood on the stones.

Tanis stood tall and stoic as any warrior queen as Jaskier drugged the feebly struggling vampire back to her. He stopped a few feet away, not wanting to risk the creature disturbing all that was left of Geralt.

She seemed to sense why Jaskier hadn’t come closer because she carefully walked around the ash to stand in front of them. The brown of her eyes had become the brick and mortar of his world, carved out mountain bedrock to withstand the test of time. Her lips went flat as a mortician’s table, waiting for the death that was coming.

“Who sent you here?”

The creature thrashed against his hold, screeching indignantly, and dragging his claws against Jaskier’s arms to try to break free. The pain was familiar. Easy. He knew better than anyone that physical pain would eventually end.

“Fuck you!” it hissed, full of malice. “You’re nothing but cattle waiting to be--”

Jaskier reached down almost casually to grab the vampire by its hair, tilting his head up to force it to look back at Tanis. He backhanded the creature hard enough that it’s ranting was cut short with the shock of pain.

Tanis watched it without expression. “Who sent you here?”

The vampire glared balefully at her, finally going silent. Jaskier kept his eyes on Tanis, waiting for the next command.

Sighing, the older woman gestured to Jaskier. “Kill this one and see if there’s another who wants to continue to live--”

“Wait, wait!” the vampire threw its hands up in a placating gesture when Jaskier tightened his hold around its arm and began to drag it back. He didn’t want the blood spray to reach Tanis or Geralt. “I’ll tell you, I swear!”

“Make sure you do it quickly--I want to see what Yennefer knows,” Tanis said dismissively over the creature’s pleading.

Jaskier grunted, trying to restrain the vampire with one hand while he reached for his knife. Already, he was scanning the other bodies to decide if any of them were in any condition to be questioned.

“Please, ple--I know his name!” the vampire screamed and Jaskier finally went still.

Tanis’ expression was carved from granite. “Tell me.”

The vampire opened his mouth and began to describe just how hopeless it was to believe yourself safe.

* * *

They called him Thanatos.

The vampire thought that he’d once been a part of Ben Arrd for a few decades before he’d been cast out to pursue his own ends. He’d been drawn to magics and experiments that were too dark to avoid drawing unwanted attention which made him a liability among mages. Somewhere along the line he’d been taken in by a coven of higher vampires to seek out a mutual target.

Witchers.

* * *

Jaskier stared down at the vampire in his hands with something close to true hatred. Every piece of new information about why they’d come to Kaer Morhen--why they’d killed Geralt--made him want to scream.

They didn’t even  _ know _ them.

“He wants all Witchers dead,” the vampire panted against Jaskier’s tightening hold, “He makes them all disappear--just like he did to the Vipers.”

His hands were shaking. Distantly, he could hear Taniss speaking, but it was almost impossible to think past the sound of his own ragged breathing. Dark spots danced at the edges of his vision, promising an escape he desperately wanted.

_ Just a little longer _ , he said to the ashes around him.  _ Wait for me a little longer, my love. _

The Soldier was silent, watchful.

“Why?” Tanis asked, her voice terribly flat.

“He hates them. Calls them abominations.” The vampire laughed wetly, “Must be if he was willing to consort with the likes of us to get rid of them.”

“How did he do it?”

“It’s the medallions. He uses them to channel the magic.”

Eskel’s medallion glinted weakly in his memory. He thought of the way the other Witcher had continued to fight to take it back or the way Geralt had always been protective of his own. They’d been spelled to sense magic, Geralt had told the bard once, and could mean the difference between life and death in a fight.

How ironic that it would be the medallion that destroyed them all.

The hold he had on the vampire tightened to the point of pain, but he couldn’t seem to force himself to loosen it. His eyes remained fixed on Tanis, waiting for her next order. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to control himself if he looked at the creature who’d helped rip away his chance at true happiness. 

Maybe there would be solace in sliding beneath the red haze of his time beneath the red haze of his years as the Soldier. Maybe that was the truly ironic part of this nightmare. If he hadn’t fought against Stregobor and Dagan’s conditioning, he wouldn’t even know that Geralt was dead. In his brief moments of clarity he would be able to imagine Roach and Geralt walking along some peaceful road, safely away from anything like this.

He should never have believed that he would be able to protect Geralt from death. That between the bard and the Soldier they would be able to create some safe haven, far away from anyone seeking to kill them.

Only to have a mage they’d never even  _ known _ rip that peace away from them. 

“Which school does he intend to attack next?” Tanis continued to question.

The vampire shook his head. “He won’t tell us. Doesn’t really trust us.”

“Then why do you follow him?”   
  


“If you got the chance to get revenge on the people who’ve been hunting you for centuries, wouldn’t you take it?” The bloodied smile made Jaskier slide further into the silence lurking within his own mind.

The Soldier remained silent, eyes fixed on  ~~ his handler  ~~ Tanis. 

She remained unmoved by the creature’s words. “Is there anything else you know about Thanatos?”

“He won’t stop. Not now,” the creature whispered, oddly sincere. It stared at Tanis like she would agree with it. “Not now that he knows what success feels like.”

Tanis slowly nodded. “I believe you-” Then she met the Soldier’s eyes squarely, “-kill him. We need to find this Thanatos.”

The creatures scream cut off in a gurgling rasp and the sound of the Soldier’s footsteps slowly walking away.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #tanisforpresident
> 
> Come yell at me in the comments.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I have to say is--Fuck it up, Tanis.

The inside of Kaer Morhen felt like a tomb by the time the Soldier returned.

Nora had Ciri pressed against her side like she could shield the girl from the newest batch of horrors the world had created for her. He could hear her murmuring soft, soothing nonsense that didn’t seem to sink past the stoic veil that had fallen over the younger’s face. Nora looked over at him, worry evident, but he ignored her in favor of walking over where Tanis was sitting slumped over against one table.

“Ready to comply,” he reported.

Tanis looked up sharply and her mouth opened and closed wordlessly for a moment. “Jaskier?”

The Soldier watched her silently, waiting for her next order.

“No,” Nora gasped, dragging Ciri along with her when she moved closer. Her honey brown eyes were red rimmed and her hand trembled faintly when she reached out in an aborted gesture towards him. “Jaskier…Jaskier, you have to come back.  _ Come back, _ Jaskier.”

Something in his twisted at the raw desperation in her voice, but it was far away, buried beneath the comfortable numbness he’d created.

“Is he okay?” Ciri asked quietly and his eyes tracked the way her hand dropped to the knife Geralt had gifted her weeks before. There was a dark knowledge in her strange eyes born from too many betrayals and horrors.

Tanis closed her eyes for a long moment, looking older than ever before. She took a deep breath that seemed to settle like a weight across her shoulders. 

“Soldier,” she finally said, “you need to get cleaned up and rest. We’ll attempt to contact Yennefer.”

“The perimeter is not secure,” he rumbled, discontent at the thought of laying down in sheets that smelled like leather and sweat and--

“What about Eskel?” Ciri said from her position near Nora and he flinched at the plaintive tone in her voice. “We need to be sure…”

Tanis made a soft sound of pity and the Soldier was reminded of the expression a general might wear going into a battle they knew they wouldn’t win. She scrubbed a hand over her face. “Do you have a way to contact Yennefer, Ciri? She might know more about what happened here.”

“I have a xenovox. It’s in my room.”

“Bring it down, please,” Tanis ordered, “We need to stay close until we can be sure they aren’t coming back.”

The Soldier trembled.

“Jaskier,” she said again and his attention snapped back to her, “are you in control?”

He took a breath, only realizing in the moment that he was panting. His muscles bunched in waves of barely restrained adrenaline and he nearly whined with the need to  _ do _ something.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and see if Vesemir might have found something about this? He had to have had a reason to leave just before the attack.” Tanis kept her voice steady, careful not to flinch and trigger the Soldier’s more violent instincts.

The Soldier--Jaskier nodded, once. Then again, when he felt more in control.

Without responding to the question in her eyes, he turned away from the others and moved up the stairs towards the library that doubled as Vesemir’s office. It was easier than facing the combination of guilt and grief among the others. He told himself he would search quickly so he could be sure that there were no other threats to the keep. The Soldier knew such things were rarely over so quickly.

The scent of old books and manuscripts was familiar after so many long afternoons spent lurking among the shelves while his mind was fractured and rebuilt once more. He was careful not to look at the worn couch set into the alcove nearby where he and Geralt had napped in the warm sunlight. Even now, the memory of Geralt’s hands carding through his hair and the rumble of his voice as he read some bestiary aloud made the hole in his chest ache.

He shoved the thought away roughly as he made his way to the cluttered desk along one wall. Vesemir’s desk was a mixture of half-written missives between the other Witcher schools and the occasional noble seeking assistance with a problem in their realm. Jaskier brushed them aside as quickly as he could be sure they didn’t discuss Thanatos or the collection of higher vampires who’d attacked them.

It wasn’t until he found the map buried beneath a collection of letters regarding a recent uptick in attacks near the ruined watchtower Jaskier remembered from the journey here. Vesemir had scrawled notes along the page with concise strokes, slashing through areas he must have scouted himself. Jaskier’s finger traced the line of the ridge carefully.

There were two circles carefully scratched into the side of the mountain--the only places that Vesemir hadn’t searched yet.

He glanced over the bestiaries settled nearby, still opened to a chapter on Garkain, and the map with its hastily written notations. Whatever Vesemir had known, it was obvious he had begun to suspect there was more to the attacks in the region. He thought back to the expression on the older Witcher’s face the night he’d left with Yennefer and how tightly Geralt had held him the, the last time--

Shaking his head roughly, the Soldier put the map into his pocket and stalked out of the library.

* * *

The Soldier didn’t bother to go back through the great hall where he knew the women were scraping together a meal from the kitchens in an attempt for normalcy. Most of it was for Ciri’s sake, he knew, but the idea of trying to pretend that he was okay felt like torture. He felt like his namesake--only a gust of wind away from scattering into pieces.

He skated the great hall by ducking out one of the windows that looked out over the courtyards and jumped neatly onto the stable’s roof. Beneath him, he could hear the Witchers’ horses stirring anxiously at the sound and the blood that was still drying on the cobblestones. Without considering why, he found himself moving toward the brown mare stabled in the box stall at the end of the line of war horses.

Roach gave him a cheerful winny when she saw him hop the stable wall, her dark eyes strangely intelligent. He moved closer, eager to be near someone who would miss Geralt as much as he already did. Her ears pricked curiously at him, already scanning the space around him for the Witcher who would never see her again.

The thought made a sob rip free from his chest, raw and wretched. He leaned his forehead against the warm muscle of her neck and listened to the steady beat of her heart while his shoulders shook with sobs. 

Geralt was gone.

He would never come back. 

All there was to remember him by was a small pile of grey ash and the sounds of a broken man’s grief.

* * *

“Thought I might find you here.”

Jaskier didn’t move from where he’d curled up in the warm hay at the edge of Roach’s stall. His face felt sticky and swollen from the tears that continued to drip down his cheeks. He’d curled up with his knees against his chest, forcing away the panic attack that continued to lurk in the recesses of his mind.

At the sound of Tanis’ voice, he pressed himself into a tighter ball of misery in the edge of the stall. 

He listened to the sound of Roach munching happily on whatever treat Tanis must have brought her and tried to force his breathing to slow. When he looked up, Tavis kept her eyes fixed on the mare, allowing Jaskier the semblance of privacy.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. Simple. Succinct in a way that only came with a suffering of her own.

He thought about the small collection of simple graves that had been tucked away at the edge of the woods near her tavern.

“I shouldn’t have come back.” His voice was raw and he could feel the words grate against his throat.

“Maybe,” she agreed, “It would have been easier for you to hide away in our tavern--but I doubt Geralt would have agreed.”

“I don’t--” He made a rough sound and shook his head, fisting his hands in his hair, “I don’t know how to do this without him.”

“No one said you have to.”

He pressed the palm of his hand against his stinging eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do,” he begged her, looking up for the first time.

She sighed and watched him with a terrible sort of understanding. 

“Revenge seems like a good place to start.”

* * *

The Soldier waited until nightfall to strike. 

The weapons he’d taken from the Wolf School’s armory were bulkier than he typically preferred, but he’d suffered through worse and for longer. He’d taken the steps he needed to make sure they wouldn’t make a sound when he began to make his way down the steep mountain path to the small cave there.

Even if he hadn’t had Vesemir’s notes to guide him, it would have been obvious that he’d found the right place. Rot permeated the air in a sickly sweet cloud. Pale bones gleamed in the faint moonlight from a discarded pile nearby, some still bearing the ragged fragments of clothing stained brown with dried blood. It was obvious that they had been here for some time judging from the number of bodies they’d collected--that or they’d thrown caution to the wind once they realized that the Witchers would be gone soon.

He was careful to scan the trees around their cave for any sign of a lookout and circled the area twice before he was satisfied that the vampires had been too dumb or too confident to bother. Mentally, he ran through what he’d learned from Vesemir’s books in his head. Higher vampires could take three forms, each designed to do as much damage as possible and quickly. The highest rate of success remained in the element of surprise.

Unfortunately, surprise also meant that he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of their suffering.

It was an odd thing to take the place of a Witcher with their concoctions and poisons carefully crafted for each of their prey. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend Geralt was somewhere just out of sight, waiting for the signal to move forward. Only now there wouldn’t be any Witchers to arrive and make things right. There was only the Soldier and the bard and the yawning chasm of their grief.

Once he was sure that there weren’t any members of the coven outside the cave system, he pulled out the bottle full of clear liquid and stepped through the entrance to the cave. Methodically, carefully, he poured the sharp smelling mixture in a thick line across the rough opening. It burned in his nostrils, but he forced himself to make sure every inch was covered before finally tossing the bottle aside.

Slowly, he took a step deeper into the cave’s darkness and widened his stance so his weight would be evenly balanced. Raising his freehand to his lips, he let out a shrill whistle that echoed through the cavernous space. 

Deep within the cave the sound of running footsteps and shrieks from inhuman throats rushed forward. The Soldier took a deep breath, his throat rumbling as a soft tune hummed deep in his chest.

_ “I can hear the canons calling, _ ” the bard rasped as the first shadow raced toward him, “ _ as though across a dream. And I can hear the smoke of hell in every stitch and seam…” _

He ducked beneath a slash of claws and brought the blade of his knife up deep into the emaciated stomach. The creature screamed in agony, baring his teeth in a gesture that Jaskier returned with his own snarl.

_ “And like flowers, the bodies tumble--” _ He jerked the blade, letting the vampire falling twitching to the ground, and bringing it back up to hurl through the air into the eye of the next. _ “--around this muddied lot.” _

The Soldier stared at the horde of vampires rushing towards him with preternatural speed and reached down with studied nonchalance for the flare he’d tucked away for this moment. 

_ “I cannot hear them scream--” _

Light flashed as the fire sparked in his hands--enough to reflect in the eyes of a dozen vampires--before it soared through the air to land neatly in the kerosene laced concoction he’d poured there. Within seconds, the entire entrance was a wall of flames, backlighting the lone soldier raising his sword in challenge.

_ “--’Forget me not.’” _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to grieve with me in the comments. :'(


	5. Chapter 5

Drip. 

A single set of footsteps seemed destined for loneliness. 

Drip. 

Drip. 

The soft scrape of a blade against the harsh stone of a fortress long destroyed broke the grieving silence that had settled there. 

It was Nora who heard it, standing backlit against the dying fire. He let his eyes settle on her figure instead of the empty spaces at the table where the wolves were meant to rest. Better that than consider the way Kaer Morhen had gone from a refuge to a deathshroud. 

Drip. 

Dr

ip.

Drip.

“Oh gods— _ Jaskier _ !”

At the sound of his name, the pallor in the room seemed to snap of new tension. Tanis dropped the jug of water she’d been carrying to clutch her hands to her mouth in surprise. 

They raced toward him, hesitating at the final step in the face of the bloody figure wearing the face of the man they’d once known. 

Gone now. Gone with Geralt. 

He took in a breath that highlighted the band of pain left behind by the creatures he’d fought. Their blood covered every inch of him now and itched when he moved. The irritation was inconsequential compared to the ache deep within him that would never heal. 

In Tanis’ eyes bloomed a new understanding at the sight of him. Vengeance, after all, had been her suggestion. 

“Jaskier,” Nora cried again, near frantic, “what happened? Are—are you okay?”

Her work calloused fingers were gentle against his skin and, strangely, made him flinch. There was no softness left in him. He was flint and tinder. Waiting for a spark to allow him to burn. 

Speech felt too foreign so he let his bloodied weapon fall to the ground with a dull clang. Tanis stepped forward and looked him over with a critical eye. 

“Are they all dead?”

He nodded, mind flickering back to the burning cave. 

“Are you injured?”

Mentally he considered the various cuts and scrapes that littered his body from fingers curved into claws and snapping teeth. He shook his head. 

The Soldier had suffered worse. The bard would learn too. 

“Go get yourself cleaned up and we’ll get some food in you.”

Still silent, he turned and bent down to grab his bloodied weapon, finger tracing over the familiar design in a quick caress. The blade shouldn’t be in his hand, he knew, but he couldn’t let Geralt’s sword lay forgotten in some armory. 

Jaskier made his way down the stairs toward the bathing room, relishing the burn of tired muscles. He let them numbness that had settled into his mind during the long walk back to the keep sink deeper, pulling him along like an undertow.

Behind him, he could hear the worried whispers of Tanis and Nora as he made his way away from them. Once, he might have felt bad for causing them to go through all this considering how much they had already done for him. Now, part of him wished they’d never brought him back.

If he hadn’t remembered, he wouldn’t have known the devastation that came with losing Geralt. He would have been safely lost within Stregobor’s web of lies. He would have continued to kill and forget and Geralt would never have risked everything to find him. He wouldn’t have to face a lifetime of mornings waking up alone in their bed with the salt of tears on his cheeks and a scent that would only fade in time.

When he reached the bathing area designed to wash away the worst of the gore and muck that Witchers could track in, Jaskier didn’t bother to heat the water that was pumped up from the springs beneath the keep. His clothes were a lost cause that he tossed into a corner to deal with later. The weapons were laid out where he could clean away the dried blood so the metal didn’t rust.

It took three tubs full of murky water before he deemed himself cleaned. The chilly water made him shiver as he padded across the floor in his bare feet, but he ignored it. He wrapped a towel around his hips and considered the scrapes and cuts that littered his chest and arms. A few were deep enough that he considered asking Tanis to stitch them, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The bandages tucked into one of the alcoves nearby would have to do.

He pulled another towel out of the cabinet and used one of the buckets of water to begin the familiar process of cleaning Geralt’s weapons. Even before he’d fallen and lost himself, Jaskier could remember how often he’d done the same for Geralt when the Witcher had hobbled into camp after a long hunt. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that he heard the sound of the campfire nearby or the familiar sounds of Roach munching on grass. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend Geralt was somewhere just out of sight.

If he closed his eyes--

_ Jaskier _ ?

Breathing harshly, the Soldier shoved away the image of ash and desolation and got to his feet. He knew lingering in his memories would destroy him.

Walking back into their room was another blade twisting in his chest. He breathed in the scents that had become synonymous with home and safety and tried to ignore his burning eyes. He didn’t look at the rumpled sheets, knowing that sleep was something he would avoid as long as he possibly could. Outside the window, he knew the sun was rising in a sky where Geralt and the other wolves would never again cast a shadow.

The injuries he’d been ignoring were sore enough now that he allowed himself to limp over to the cedar dresser, bypassing the chest where his clothes were stored. He pulled open the top drawer and shuddered when the air was filled with the thick scent of leather and the oils Geralt used on his hunts. His fingers brushed over the dark shirts the Witcher preferred like he was touching a priceless relic.

It was all he had left of Geralt now.

Weakened by the thought, he was unable to pass up the temptation of slipping the worn shirt over his head. The fabric was large enough to nearly swallow him and wanted to slip down his shoulder, but he was surrounded by the scent of his Witcher and that would have to be enough. He threw on an old pair of pants that still smelled like horses and hay from his time in the stables then headed down to the Great Hall.

Tanis looked up with a smile designed to keep him from noticing the way she’d clearly been watching for his return. There were new lines of tension around her eyes and the bard wanted to twist in guilt at the thought that he might be the cause of them.

“You look better,” she said, gesturing for him to sit down on one of the benches.

The Soldier shrugged. He was functional.

Nora stepped through the doors leading to the kitchen and smiled gently at the two of them. “I managed to heat up some leftovers. Not my best meal, but it’ll warm you up some.”

He managed a nod in thanks and methodically began to eat the food placed in front of him. Jaskier wondered how long it would be before it stopped tasting like ash.

“Are you…” Nora faltered a little, unsure how to approach the wellspring of grief that clung like a shroud around him. “Where were you?”

Jaskier gestured toward the library. “Vesemir had a map with nearby vampire covens marked. I went for information.”

And revenge, he didn’t say. He didn’t need to.

“Did you find anything?” Tanis’ eyes were flinty with focus.

He started to shake his head, but froze as the air around them crackled with electricity.

The Soldier got to his feet with a sword in his hand a moment before a portal bloomed to life between the empty tables. Whatever exhaustion lingering from the fight disappeared beneath a mixture of adrenaline and rage. Both Jaskier and the Soldier were utterly focused on the desire to rip apart the man responsible for tearing his world apart.

Instead of Thanatos, a different mage stepped out of the swirling magic.

“Yennefer!” Ciri’s voice called out over the sound of the portal. The blonde raced down the stairs that led to her rooms and crossed the empty hall to throw her arms around the mage.

The Soldier caught sight of the relief on Yennefer’s face before she allowed herself to cling to the daughter she’d adopted. “You’re okay,” she murmured, sagging under the weight of that knowledge. Then she looked over at the rest of them, “Where’s…?”

He trembled, wordless in the wake of his loss. His fingers gripped around the sword until his bones ached.

“Vesemir?” Tanis asked softly, sorrow in her expression. Her eyes flicked back at the portal as it slid closed. Jaskier tried not to think about how often he’d found the oldest Witcher and Tanis leaning over some book or laughing quietly together after dinner.

Yennefer shook her head. “He just--” Her voice faltered painfully and she made a weak gesture, “--I’ve been trying to bring him back.”

“What do you know?”

“Not much,” she said, “The spell seemed to surge up out of nowhere. I didn’t even know what had happened until I turned around and Vesemir just…”

The Soldier stepped closer in a burst of barely controlled rage. “How can you  _ not know _ what they did? Thanatos killed them. He killed  _ Geralt _ .” When his voice broke on the last word, Tanis laid a hand on his arm in a silent restraint. He trembled beneath her grip, only barely maintaining his sanity.

“Thanatos?” Yennefer asked after a pause.

Tanis nodded. “That’s what he called himself. He was with a group of higher vampires.”

“Did any of them survive? Maybe we could question them--”

“No.” Purple eyes darted to the Soldier when he growled out in a voice that sounded like gravel. “They’re dead.”

“We questioned one of the survivors,” Tanis continued evenly, “He told us that Thanatos is attacking all of the Witcher schools.”

“But how? I’ve never even heard of magic like this.”

“Something about their medallions. He uses them to channel the magic to any Witcher in the school.”

_ A medallion swinging in the air like a trophy, glinting dully in the sunlight-- _

“Can you fix it?” The Soldier gritted out, a new desperation building.

“I…” Yennefer faltered, looking down at Ciri’s hopeful eyes.

He took a step towards her, aggressive. “Can you reverse it?”

“Jaskier,” she began, “I don’t think--”

A snarl ripped free from his chest and he felt his control on the storm brewing within him beginning to falter. All he could think about was the surprise in Geralt’s eyes when he reached out to Jaskier like everything would be okay if he could just reach Jaskier. 

That couldn’t be the last time he saw Geralt.

It couldn’t end like this.

_ “Bring him back!”  _

This time the mage’s magic burst to life in a purple-tinged shield between them. Her eyes blazed with a mixture of distrust and determination as she gently moved Ciri behind her. The Soldier eyed her with barely contained malice. All mages were the same. Evil. Eager to destroy everything he loved.

“Soldier!” Tanis’ voice lashed out like a blade, slicing through the growing tension. “She is not your enemy.”

“He’s losing control.” Yennefer eyed him with something close to pity. “Without Geralt…”

“He’s fine. The Soldier is not the monster you think he is.”

“How can you be so sure?”

This time it was Nora who answered. “We know Jaskier and we know the Soldier. Neither would harm anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

Yennefer’s eyes narrowed at the implication, but Ciri pushed herself forward. “ _ Can _ you reverse the spell?”

“Ciri, I...I don’t know. I can try.”

The Soldier growled low enough to make the others shiver. “Thanatos will pay. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Jaskier, it’s not safe for you to--” Nora started, but he was already walking away--ready to lean into the darkness that lurked within him.

* * *

He would wake. He would kill. And maybe, if he was lucky, he would forget again. 

_ Let me forget again.  _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for the birth of a new White Wolf.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the dear friends who inspire me to be my angstiest self--you know who you are. Enjoy ;)
> 
> Slight TW for suicidal thoughts.

“The Griffin School is gone.”

The words were far too simple a descriptor for the devastation left behind in the isolated mountaintop stronghold. Whatever victory Thanatos had managed had come at a high cost.

Bloated and burning corpses littered the ground outside of the simple rooms carved into the sheer mountainside aerie. It had taken Jaskier the better part of the day to scale the steep path, ignoring the scent of death that grew stronger with each step in favor of maintaining a dying hope that maybe the Griffin School would succeed where the ambushed Wolves could not. 

He searched for their bodies for hours before he realized the ash must have already been blown away.

Yennefer’s face was carefully blank in a way Jaskier was beginning to hate. “That was the last of the schools.”

He shook his head. “There has to be more--we must have missed something.”

“Jaskier… I’ve been searching through Vesemir’s records for weeks and--”

“Well search again!” he snarled, tightening his blood stained hands into fists. “Witchers can’t--they can’t just  _ disappear _ . Not, not after everything they’ve survived. They kill fucking monsters, Yen.  _ There has to be more _ .”

The pity in her eyes hurt worse than a blow.

“I’m sorry, Jaskier.”

* * *

“You didn’t tell me you were going hunting.”

Jaskier didn’t look up at the sound of Tanis’ carefully neutral voice, he’d listened to her hesitating outside his door minutes ago. The careful rhythm of the whetstone across his sword didn’t pause--consistent as the sounds produced from the lute in the corner he no longer touched.

“I got a lead,” he said shortly.

“Did you learn anything new?”

His silence was answer enough.

Tanis sighed, venturing further into the room. She started to settle onto the bed, but paused when he sent her a sharp look. The sheets remained perfectly tousled despite the dust that remained on them after so long. A perfect shrine to a man long gone.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Jaskier,” she said evenly as she sat on the trunk that still contained all of Jaskier’s belongings. “Geralt wouldn’t want you to live like this.”

“Ger--” His voice cracked painfully, but he forced himself to continue. “--He isn’t here.”

“He didn’t save you just for you to kill yourself avenging him.”

“Get out.” The words were shaky, matching hands that were white knuckled around the sword on his lap. His eyes blazed blue fire at her despite the dark circles hollowing his cheeks.

“Jaskier--”

“ _ I can’t stop! _ ” he roared, standing and letting the blade clatter to the floor. Tanis watched the movement without any change in her expression. “I can’t stop because I know he didn’t stop for me. Not when they told him I was an animal to be put down, not when I didn’t recognize him--not even when I tried to kill him! All he cared about was--”

Abruptly his voice broke and he felt tears trickling down his cheeks in a warm rush. He tilted his face down and watched the land on the scarred stone floors.

“I never said thank you,” he whispered. “I never told him that I loved him.”

Tanis’ arms felt like anchors in the eye of a hurricane, tightening around him when his tears turned to sobs. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

The silence was answer enough.

* * *

“Come with us.”

Nora looked warier than she’d ever been in the year he’d stayed with them as more of a Soldier than a man. He wondered if she’d begun to realize just how little control he still possessed or if it was just normal to want to avoid someone who looked like a walking corpse.

Tanis stood beside her, trying and failing to conceal her own worry. “We can’t stay away from the tavern any longer. They expected us back months ago.”

No one had expected to spend months trapped in Kaer Morhen with a bard losing his mind.

“I imagine the deer have completely ruined the vegetable patch by now,” Nora attempted to grouse, but he knew she was eager to put the tomb-like silence of Kaer Morhen behind them. “I’m sure my kitchen is ruined by now. Tomas has never been very good at cleaning.”

Jaskier swallowed hard, looking down at his hands. 

Yennefer and Ciri had already returned to the sprawling manor the mage kept near Aretuza. They couldn’t risk keeping Ciri somewhere that had already proven to be less than secure. For his part, he was glad to see the two of them leave. It made it easier without Yennefer’s wary expression and Ciri’s growing fear of how Geralt’s death was affecting him. 

He’d known this day was coming even if he’d been avoiding any serious consideration. Nora and Tanis had gone to Kaer Morhen intending to stay the winter for a brief respite--not to wage a war against an unknown enemy. As brave as they were, they weren’t warriors and they had a home waiting for them. The spring thaw had already melted the paths enough that they would make good time on their way down even without the use of Yennefer’s portals.

“Can you take Roach?” he asked softly.

Tanis looked at him for a long moment and he could imagine the warring thoughts behind her dark eyes. Finally, she nodded. “If you agree to help patch the stable’s roof.”

And let me see for myself that you aren’t lost again, she didn’t say.

Jaskier nodded, grateful at the chance to avoid an argument.

“When will you come visit us?” Nora asked. Her fingers reached out to tug gently at one of the strands of white hair that were threading through his dark hair--the price of the stress he continued to force his body through.

“Soon.”

They all knew it was a lie.

* * *

  
  


The path away from Kaer Morhen was more difficult than he remembered.

Maybe it was the fact that his belly wasn’t full of the stew Vesemir insisted on cooking with the last of the meat from the winter’s hunting. He’d always claimed it was to clear away the larders now that spring was there, but Jaskier saw the gesture for what it was--a subtle attempt to ensure that whatever dangers the world might produce, Geralt and his brothers would be strong enough to face it.

Now he found himself wandering away with an empty stomach and little direction aside from a burning need to do  _ something _ besides grieve.

He settled on something that was familiar to both the bard and the Soldier.

Hunting.

* * *

More and more often he found himself sinking deeper into the icy calm and detached numbness of the Soldier’s mentality.

Better to feel nothing than to feel like he was drowning in the screams trapped in his throat. The Soldier had been born from the pain that had crippled the men who’d come before him. He knew what it was to wake up each morning knowing that there was no one waiting for him to limp back to camp that night. All that mattered was that he was one step closer to his true target--Thanatos.

He found himself living his life through snapshots.

_ A scream cutting off in a gurgle as his knife sliced across the thin skin of a neck. _

_ Wood piling on top of corpses turned black by the heat of the fire. _

_ The fear in villagers’ eyes when he walked into their town for supplies. _

All of it was easier to accept than the way the earth continued to spin without Geralt there beside him. He started to relish the new familiarity of his aching muscles and growing collection of scars. They matched his silver hair and the medallion that hung around his neck in memory of the piece of his soul he would never again recover.

The Soldier’s focus ensured that they made good time across the Continent on the trail of whatever scraps of information they could find on Thanatos. They went to each of the mage’s schools to leave a bloody trail of informants in their wake. Whenever there was a mention of vampires on the village message boards, Jaskier took great pleasure in allowing the Soldier to destroy each and every one of them. He hoped that their passing hurt even a fraction of the way it had hurt to find the other Schools demolished. He imagined that their loss would ease some of the shadows that colored his soul.

The darkness never lightened--it lingered.

* * *

There were times where he considered why he bothered continuing forward.

Killing monsters wouldn’t bring Geralt back. It wouldn’t erase the knowledge of what it felt like to wake up and realize you’d already begun to forget the way the Witcher’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he made some sly joke. It wouldn’t bring back the scent of leather and potions that had long since faded beneath the sharp tang of blood and sweat. It wouldn’t make Roach stop looking out the stable doors each day like she was waiting for a familiar set of footsteps that would never walk across the earth again. 

When the memories and ghosts of his past rose up to strangle him, the bard found comfort in the very presence that had once erased him.

The Soldier wasn’t as affected by the knowledge of how many days had passed since his world ceased to turn. That part of his mind dismissed anything that wasn’t necessary in the hunt for Thanatos. When Jaskier was driven from his sleep by nightmares of ash and loss, they spent the late nights pouring over maps and turning over each fragment of information Yennefer could produce for something that could help them find the mage responsible for destroying Jaskier’s family.

It was better to focus on their mission instead of the way the others were beginning to look at him.

* * *

He went back to Kaer Morhen each winter.

The ghosts never leave.

* * *

“Any news?” The words felt like lead on his tongue for all they were familiar.

Yennefer jumped in surprise, her magic crackling to life around her. She stood silhouetted in the large windows overlooking her latest property on the outskirts of Novigrad--one she hadn’t told him how to find. It took a moment before she lowered her hands and relaxed as much as she ever could around the Soldier.

“I told you I would send for you if I found something,” she said, looking annoyed at the continued lack of progress. “Thanatos must be avoiding the cities. No one has seen any evidence of him in any of the courts.”

The Soldier didn’t respond, eyeing the mage with displeasure. He knew she was less and less convinced that their mission could be successful.

“Was it you, in Redania?” she asked after a moment.

His silence was answer enough. It was a waste of both of their time to recount the ways he’d eviscerated each of the beasts who’d destroyed the Bear School.

For a moment, she allowed the silence to linger. The Soldier watched her hands fidget over her sleeves as her eyes darted back to the door where he knew the lion cub was reading a book in her rooms. Experience told him the mage was protective of the younger female, so he was careful not to move closer until it suited his needs.

“Jaskier?” she called, voice gentle in a way he knew she could never truly be. Yennefer took a small step forward, appearing to consider reaching for him before letting the arm drop to her side. “Are you still in there?”

He watched her for a long moment, mind flickering between icy calm and mindless grief.

The Soldier answered for him. 

“It’s better if he’s not.”

* * *

The decision to take up the mantle of a Witcher--even temporarily--hadn’t come easily.

He’d been so focused on tracking down any mention of Thanatos or the vampires who’d helped him lodge his assault against the Witcher Schools that his mind didn’t seem to focus on anything else. There was only the mission and the relentless pursuit of his prey.

Every time he considered slowing down to close his eyes, he remembered the way Geralt’s eyes had flashed in the dying light as he reached toward Jaskier one last time. He smelled the familiar dark blood of the vampires on his skin and the sensation of his sword through flesh. 

Worse were the voices--familiar still even with the gaps in his memory.

_ You are the Soldier. _

_ You’re my mission! _

_ You’re my friend! _ _  
  
_

_ I love you, Jaskier. _

Both the bard and the Soldier knew the truth was that they were alone. Forever now.

More and more often, Jaskier lost his grip on whatever tenuous control he had on the Soldier’s urges. It was easier to allow the clinical focus of the Soldier overwhelm the part of him that wanted to curl into a ball and weep. 

They both knew that if he allowed himself to go down, he would never get back up again.

“--you. I can’t believe you managed that.”

Jaskier blinked away the haze that always lingered in the Soldier’s mind to find himself staring at a young woman dressed in the simple garb of a farmer’s wife. He glanced around surreptitiously, but there were no clues that marked this road as any different as hundreds of roads on the Continent.

He licked his lips, swallowing twice before he found his voice. “What?”

The woman frowned at him, but he could see the way adrenaline was still making her tremble in the wake of whatever clash she’d just escaped. “You saved me from them! I--I thought I was a goner.”

Again, Jaskier looked around, this time focusing on himself. The blood splatter across his clothes was old enough to have begun drying, but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t from the last den of vamps he’d hit. He rolled his shoulders, testing each of his limbs for any damage and decided he was functional.

“Where are we?” he asked, ignoring the hero worship in her eyes.

“You…” she frowned, hesitating now, “We’re in Redania. My village, Twin Forks, is a mile or so from here.”

“Then you should get going before something else tries to kill you.” Briskly, he turned on his heels to head east, guessing he’d hit a town sooner or later. He needed to rendezvous with Yennefer to see if she’d recovered anything new.

“Wait! Master Witcher!”

The title made his spine go stiff with a terrible mixture of horror and dismay. He whirled back toward her. “I am not a Witcher,” he growled.

“Oh…” she faltered, eyes wide. “I just...You have the medallion. I just assumed--”

“Get back to your home, girl.” Abruptly, whatever anger had triggered his outburst left just as quickly and he turned back to the lonely road ahead of him. “The Witchers are gone.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sad bard is sad.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the whump.

He didn’t feel the ground against his back as the world slowly stopped spinning.

Above him, the sky was clear. Stars blinked into sight as the last of the dying sunlight disappeared beneath the horizon. Distantly, he knew that the air around him must be getting colder and that he should feel the chill beginning to seep into his bones.

But he didn’t feel anything.

Jaskier ran shaking fingers up over his torso, staring blankly at the dark stains that mottled the tanned skin. The Arachas nest had been bigger than he had anticipated, but he was sure he’d managed to kill off the swarm before the largest of them struck. He could remember the weight of the knife in his hand sinking deep into the insect’s side even as the creature slung him across the clearing. He assumed that the fact that it hadn’t followed to finish him off meant that it was dead or dying too. It was sloppy work, but he was never meant to be a Witcher.

He let his hand fall back to the ground when the effort of pretending to care about his injuries became too much. The Soldier had long since accepted that they would die in one of their hunts and the bard was too far gone to attempt anything otherwise. Whatever they’d owed Geralt in their past life together had been repaid time and time again when they answered the calls of people needing a Witcher.

Let this be enough to outweigh the darkness on his soul. Let it be enough to ensure he could go to wherever Geralt was now.

His chest burned with the effects of the poison his heart continued to move through his veins. It made his fingertips go numb and his legs seem too far away to consider going for help. He was dying. He’d walked with death long enough to recognize its face in the shadows moving around him.

“Wait for me, my love,” he breathed into the night sky.

He opened his eyes in time to see a figure step out from the trees and felt his heart race.

* * *

The sound of the tavern’s squeaky hinge was as familiar as the ache in her joints. Despite this, Tanis never managed to avoid the part of her that snapped to attention at the sound. Once, it would have signaled a potential new customer that would chase away poverty for another day.

Now, it meant that Jaskier might have returned.

In the two years since Geralt, since the boy’s world had been destroyed again, she’d only seen him a handful of times. He would come through the doors, silent and wary as a wild thing, and hover close to her and Nora for a day or so before disappearing again. It was as though he could only stay as long as it took to ensure that they were alive and well before the memories chased him away again.

Somehow, it was almost worse knowing how he’d been before and after he’d broken free from Stregobor’s madness. She’d seen the fragile seeds of his hope and perseverance that had remained beneath the scars of his experience when he’d first arrived. Watched it grow and take root under the steady care and support of their family. Then she’d seen him bloom in the muted sunlight of the Witcher’s smile.

The thought made her hands clench around the cleaning rag in her hand, uncaring of the way the gesture made her joints ache in a reminder that it wouldn’t be long before she joined the growing list of people that would leave Jaskier behind. It made her furious--an emotion she preferred to the heartbreak of it all. If she still believed in the old gods, she might have been tempted to climb up to their lofty mountaintops and make them regret creating something as golden as her bardling, only to tarnish it with pain and heartache.

Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about the lost way Jaskier had looked at her after, after everything. It had been the expression of a child--confused and hoping for someone to step in and make the world right again. Only she couldn’t take the ashes scattering in the wind and breathe life back into them. She couldn’t erase the new horrors in his eyes or protect him from what the future held.

It was like all she could do was watch.

From behind the swinging doors that led to the main room, Tanis heard the murmurings of the crowd grow louder and frowned. She glanced out the window in a familiar check at the time, but the sun had long ago disappeared from the sky and she hadn’t been expecting any more locals to arrive this late. 

“--nis?  _ Tanis _ !” 

The sound of the butcher’s boy calling her name had her moving forward on autopilot. The dread that always arose in moments like these was carefully hidden away beneath the thin veneer of calm. She tossed the cloth into the sink with the rest of the dirty dishes and caught the eyes of her daughter as she walked in from the stables. Immediately, Nora turned to fish out the bag of supplies they’d set aside for emergencies.

“What is it?” she called as she hustled out of the back area, “Did Hannah go into labor--”   
  


It wasn’t Hannah.

Tanis felt the world go quiet even as her lips shaped the familiar name on a gasp. “Jaskier.”

The man was draped over two broad shouldered farmers that owned land a few miles up the road. They struggled beneath the weight of the unconscious man--the task made difficult by the wounds that had turned his black shirt shiny with blood.

“We found him near the road,” one explained as she rushed forward. “He was barely lucid.”

“Jaskier?” she called even as she noted the way he hadn’t responded to any of the sounds around him. Her hands brushed over a too-pale cheek and she couldn’t manage to find her breath until she felt the slow pulse of his heartbeat against her fingertips.

He shifted, breath hot with the fever that flushed his skin. “Ger...alt?” he whispered over the sound of her heart breaking. 

“No, sweetheart. It’s me. It’s Tanis. You’re going to be okay.”

She told herself it was the truth. Even if she had to drag his soul back from the depths of the other world.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said again, his lips twitching into a soft smile she barely remembered. His eyes fixed on some unseen ghost. “I found you.”

* * *

“You’re alive. Geralt, I--I’ve been looking for you for so long.” Jaskier watched Geralt with greedy eyes. “I’ve been right here. Right where you left me.”

Geralt’s face was somehow more beautiful that he remembered and it made his heart ache that he’d forgotten any part of him. His voice was the same deep rumble that made his fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and feel the vibrations on his skin. He wanted to press Geralt into his skin, into the broken and jagged edges of himself until he could be sure that he would never lose him again.

Abruptly, he felt himself trembling, eyes stinging with tears that he couldn’t risk blinking away. Not when it could mean losing sight of Geralt. “Geralt,” he said again, helplessly shifting to bridge the distance between them when the Witcher remained just out of reach. “Don’t leave me again. Please. I--I can’t do this again. Not again.”

Geralt remained silent. Just out of reach.  _ Always _ out of his reach.

“I’ll--I can be better.” The words belonged to the bard who knew what it was to watch Geralt choose to walk away from him. He swallowed past the bile and the hurt that had been his only companion for so long. “I can be like I was before, before the Soldier, be--before Stregobor.”

When there was no response, Jaskier felt his fragile hold on his emotions disappear beneath the weight of his anguish.  ”How— you— I saw you  _ die _ , Geralt. You were gone. You’ve  _ been _ gone.” He felt the words like the lash of a whip, reopening the poison lodged within him and it was easy to find the weapon in each word. 

“You left me! You tricked me into thinking you wanted me and then you left. And it wasn’t your fault, I know, but that makes me all the more angry because I can’t be angry at  _ you _ so I don’t know who else to be angry with other than me.” His throat closed around a wretched noise of grief and he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.

“Jaskier…”

The sound of another voice was muffled as though from some vast distance, but Jaskier only shook his head stubbornly. Tears dripped unheeded down his cheeks as he watched Geralt look at him as though he didn’t recognize him any more. The thought made him release a bitter laugh.

”I don’t know why I thought things would be different now,” he said roughly, “You didn’t save me, I saved myself and you were there. But I should have been able to save you. I’m better now, than I was— stronger, faster... I should have been able to save you.”

_ Why couldn’t I save you? _

* * *

“Get him on the bed,” Tanis ordered, moving ahead to pull off the quilt thrown over the mattress and move aside anything that would get in the way. “Nora, get my sewing kit and some hot water. We’re going to need to sterilize the bandages.”

The farmers carefully lowered Jaskier onto the mattress, wincing with sympathy when the movement made Jaskier gasp and his eyes flutter restlessly beneath closed lids. 

“Call for Moira,” she told one of them. 

“I’m already here, Tan.” A young, plain faced woman came through the door a moment later, a heavy bag over one arm. The healer’s face was focused on the bed where Jaskier was laying with an uncharacteristically somber expression on her face. 

Immediately, she set her bag down and laid out her supplies on the bed next to Jaskier. The bard didn’t seem to notice as his head shifted back and forth on the pillow, eyes flickering around the room as though seeing something else entirely. Moira reached for a pair of shears and began cutting away the blood soaking clothing to expose the wounds beneath, but froze when Jaskier’s chest was exposed.

Pale, mottled scars crisscrossed newer wounds in a tapestry of pain. A massive, puckered burn curled around the bend in his waist and Tanis felt herself bite back a curse. How many of these had been left behind by Stregobor’s butchers? She marveled at the naivety of her past self for ever believing that Jaskier was just another soldier wandering home from the wars. It was as though his body had been forced to show the scars she knew littered his mind from their torture.

It hurt to remember how many time Jaskier had purposely shied away from shedding his shirt in front of them. Even in the hottest part of summer, he’d been careful to keep a long sleeved top on and ignored the offers of the villagers to swim in the river nearby. She tried to imagine what it must have been like to remember the bard he’d once been and realize that man had been bled dry by a madman.

“What…” Moira started to ask before seeming to shake herself out of the line of questioning to get to work.

Tanis remained at her side as they began the long process of cleaning and stitching the wounds. There were several small cuts and slices that Tanis wrapped and put pressure on while Moira tended the bigger injury across his middle. She didn’t like the look of the vicious looking dark lines that marked where the poison was spreading.

It took the better part of an hour before their injuries were clean enough to begin the process of stitching the worst of them closed. Nora came in and out of the room without a word, exchanging the murky red water in the basin for fresh water. The pile of bandages grew with each new cut and Tanis found herself wishing she were a few decades younger so she could have attempted to travel with Jaskier--if only to tan his hide for treating himself so poorly.

The healer remained steady throughout it all, tempered by years of treating injuries left behind by the harvest and the creatures that lurked at the village edge. They were lucky that there was someone with any sort of skills nearby, she thought as Moira neatly stitched along the cut left by the Arachas’ claws. Tanis was grateful to add Jaskier’s name to the list of people who had been saved by her quick action.

Finally, Moira shook her head and stood upright, stretching away the stiffness in her back. “He’s lucky I have experience with Arachas venom. Any longer and he would have been past the point of no return.”

“So you can save him?” Tanis asked, unable to hide the anxiety in her voice. 

“He’s strong,” the healer said as she traced a long cut that bisected his collarbone. “He wouldn’t have survived this long if he wasn’t.”

“Thank you. For helping him. He’s...He deserves more than this.” Tanis reached out to pull up the sheet and brush away a lock of tangled dark hair.

Jaskier shifted restlessly, whining softly when she went to move away. “Geralt…”

“Who is that?” Moira asked.

Tanis felt her heart clench at the reminder of the solemn warrior who’d shared her dedication to Jaskier. “Someone who deserved far more than he was given.”

The healer nodded, eyes perceptive on the fallen man. She looked up at a knock at the door and smiled when Nora stepped through carrying a chair to place at the bedside.

Her daughter moved closer, lingering a little too closely by Moira’s side to pass as friends. Tanis watched the healer’s hands twitch in an effort to conceal the urge to reach for her hand and hid her own smile. At least someone deserved to succeed in love.

“He’ll need rest and fluids when he wakes,” Moira said after a pause. “If he can make it through the night, he’ll be fine.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Nora’s dimples flashed as she leveled a smile at the healer who looked a little dazed by the display. “I’ve warmed up some dinner for you if you haven’t eaten.”

“That sounds lovely,” Moira said eagerly, then glanced over at Tanis a little guiltily. ”Unless you’d prefer I stay with him?”

Tanis shook her head, her eyes on Jaskier’s unconscious from, and waved them off. The two of them nodded and disappeared for the kitchens with promises of returning with some food soon. She settled into the chair beside the bed and tried to ignore the familiar sensation of waiting for the impossible. 

A few minutes later she heard the door open again and turned to face it in surprise. “That was qui—“ the words died in her mouth at the sight of the dark haired mage walking into the room. She stood, protective. “Yennefer. What are you doing here?”

They’d never been close, the two of them. There was too much bitterness towards the mage who’d wanted to kill Jaskier in order to stop the Soldier and too much wariness in a mage who knew some people couldn’t be saved. 

Yennefer’s eyes scanned Jaskier’s form with a critical expression. “I heard the Soldier returned.”

“ _ Jaskier _ returned,” Tanis corrected sharply. 

“He hasn’t been Jaskier for a long time.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Yennefer glared at her, matching her stubbornness. “He can’t be trusted. Not now.” She fought to soften her expression while Tanis curled her lip in disgust. “He was my friend once—“

“That speaks very poorly of you then, if you were willing to give him up so easily.”

“I am not afraid of doing what must be done.”

Tanis bristled and stood, angling herself between the mage and the injured man on the bed. “Is that why you’re here?” she accused, “To put him down while he’s too weak to stop you?”

Yennefer started to speak, but froze when a sharp blade was pressed against her neck. 

Nora’s face held none of the softness she was known for when she leaned forward to growl directly into the mage’s ear, “Bold of you to think you could manage it.”

A fierce bolt of pride shot through her at the sight of her daughter’s easy handling of the knife in her hand. It made her remember how many afternoons she’d watched Jaskier patiently walk her daughter through the steps necessary to ensure that she’d never be a victim again. Sometimes, holding the hilt of the knife he’d gifted her was the only way Nora could get through the day when the shadows lingered a little too close and they were reminded just how little power they had over the hand of fate.

Yennefer went stiff with indignation. “Do you really believe you stand a chance against me?”

“Mages bleed just like anyone else.”

“You wouldn’t dar--”

“Melitele’s tits!” A new voice interrupted and Ciri pushed her way into the room. “Would you both just calm the fuck down?”

“ _ Language _ !” Tanis and Yennefer snapped at the same time.

Both of them glared at each other for another moment while Ciri gave a dismissive huff. The former princess faltered slightly at the sight of Jaskier, some of her bravado dimming when she took in the bloodied bandages and the slight rise and fall of his chest. “We didn’t know Jaskier was hurt,” she said softly, “We just overheard the men downstairs.”

Tanis took a breath and forced herself to soften her voice past the irritation triggered by the mage’s appearance. “Why did you come then?”

Yennefer remained stubbornly silent, mulish.

“Tell her,” Ciri said gently, as though she knew the information might ease some of the unbearable tension in the room.

“I came to see if you knew where the Soldier was,” Yennefer finally said stiffly. Her eyes flicked to where the man was lying on the bed before she continued. “One of my informants finally uncovered where Thanatos has been hiding.”

_ I promised Jaskier I would tell him _ , she didn’t say.

It was still enough of an olive branch that Nora glanced at her mother before slowly pulling her knife away from Yennefer’s throat. She took a small step back, keeping herself close enough to strike if necessary. Ciri gave her a smile in gratitude for the gesture.

Yennefer scowled at her adoptive daughter, but continued. “He’s been laying low since he dusted the last of the Witcher Schools, but apparently couldn’t outrun the debts he’d run up in his campaign. A lord in Redania offered me the location of his home to repay the blood debt left behind after several of his vampires slaughtered his children. I don’t intend to give him enough time to run again.”

“Jaskier is in no condition to fight,” Tanis said sharply, “You can’t just call on the Soldier whenever you decide you like what he is capable of.”

“This is the only thing the Soldier is good for,” Yennefer snapped and Tanis stepped forward with a furious snarl.

“Stop.”

The room seemed to freeze at the sound of the low rasp. Argument forgotten, Tanis spun on her heel in time to see Jaskier trying to weakly sit up on the bed. 

She rushed forward, reaching out to gently push him back and ignoring the way he frowned at her. “Don’t move. You’ll rip your stitches. Nora, go get Moira--”

“No.” This time there was steel beneath the words. Jaskier looked past Tanis to Yennefer and narrowed his eyes like he was daring her to try to stop him. “Tell me where Thanatos is.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Plot! Revenge! Murder!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the chapter you've been waiting for! aka The Soldier vs. Thanatos

Jaskier dreamed of falling. Of the low rumble of a sleep-rough voice against his skin. Of skin gleaming healthy and golden in the morning light.

Of  _ him _ .

But when he opened his eyes, all there was was the familiar ache in his chest and the cold sheets on the bed beside him. He wondered how long it would be before he stopped reaching out for a man who was no longer there to reach back. It made his heart throb dully in his chest and he weakly pressed his palm over the sluggishly beating organ, wishing it would just stop.

Voices chatter nearby--sharp and angry--confirming the Soldier’s suspicions that they’d managed to make it back to Tanis and Nora’s inn. That was the only reason he could think of to explain why his stomach was wrapped in clean bandages and he could feel the itch of stitches lacing the injury along his side closed. His body ached like a bruise--a lingering side effect of the poison that had left him stumbling and bleeding from the gulley where he’d killed off a cluster of archespores.

Best not to think about the other side effect of the poison.

The Soldier was careful not to move or make any noises that would alert the humans in his room that he was awake. A careful breath in filled his lungs with the scent of chaos and gooseberries and  _ Yennefer _ along with the softer scents of fresh bread and clean sweat that marked  _ Tanis _ . He shifted his hand minutely, brushing over his bandaged side down to where his closest blade should have been, frowning when he felt nothing but soft, clean pants.

If the mage was here, it was best to keep himself armed. They knew Yennefer had never believed him capable of controlling the Soldier and would be the first person to put him down if she thought he was slipping again. As much as the thought of finally sinking into the darkness that he’d tread through more than a few times was appealing, neither the Soldier or the bard could rest until their mission was complete.

_ Status _ ? He imagined his former handler asking.

_ Ready to comply. Injuries manageable. _

The sound of the former princess’ voice caused him to pause with his muscles bunched in preparation to sit up.

Yennefer’s voice held the same sharpness he remembered from both of his lives as she elaborated at Ciri’s request. “I came to see if you knew where the Soldier was. One of my informants finally uncovered where Thanatos has been hiding.”

Immediately, all thoughts of leaving without Tanis or the others noticing fled. Just the name of the man responsible for ruining his life--for taking Geralt--was enough to make his mind go silent as the moments after Stregobor’s magic ripped through him.

But, Yennefer was still speaking.

“He’s been laying low since he dusted the last of the Witcher Schools, but apparently couldn’t outrun the debts he’d run up in his campaign. A lord in Redania offered me the location of his home to repay the blood debt left behind after several of his vampires slaughtered his children. I don’t intend to give him enough time to run again.”

Somewhere, closer to the bed, Tanis made an indignant sound. “Jaskier is in no condition to fight. You can’t just call on the Soldier whenever you decide you like what he is capable of.”

“This is the only thing the Soldier is good for,” Yennefer growled back and he heard Tanis step forward with a snarl of her own.

“Stop.”

The room seemed to freeze at the sound of his voice, rough from months of little use. Argument forgotten, Tanis spun on her heel in time to see Jaskier trying to weakly sit up on the bed. 

She rushed forward, reaching out to gently push him back and ignored the way the gesture toward him made him flinch. “Don’t move. You’ll rip your stitches. Nora, go get Moira--”

“No.” He put out a hand to halt her movement in a gentle hold--even the Soldier was desperately protective of the tiny, fierce woman. Her lips pursed into a frown that he ignored in favor of focusing on the mage, his heart thudding an eager breath. “Tell me where Thanatos is.”

They were going to finish this, once and for all.

* * *

It’s not that easy of course.

Jaskier was still injured and drained from the effects of the poison. Even sitting this long left him in a cold sweat and sent pain singing through his blood. The Soldier knew they’d completed smaller missions through worse. 

They  _ would _ do this. For Geralt. 

Yennefer continued to regard him with an open wariness where Ciri seemed mostly resigned to the knowledge that he would be going after Thanatos no matter what they thought. She frowned a little watching him and he knew he was searching for any signs of the bard beneath the pain and loneliness of the last two years. He doubted she would have any luck. 

Instinctively, he glanced out the narrow window set into the closest wall and tried to contemplate how long he might have been unconscious. The bite in the air assured him it was still autumn and it helped ease some of the tension coiling through him. 

He couldn’t afford to lose any more time. It might mean Thanatos slipped through their fingers again.

“Tell me what you know,” he demanded.

Yennefer glared at him, but continued. “I don’t know much more than that. Tracking the vampire covens throughout the Continent hasn’t led to much. Most of them have been cleared out--I assume that was your doing?”

He nodded.

“I sent out a few inquiries about zealots that might have it out for Witchers through Aretuza and their allies,” she said, “No one recognized the name, but I assume it’s a relatively new moniker. Luckily, his operation still required certain supplies which I was able to track back to a relatively isolated hamlet in Lyria. He must not have expected anyone to look for him after the Witcher schools were gone because the shipments of feainnewedd and other key ingredients to boost a portal big enough to move an army of vampires matches each of the attacks.”

For the first time in years, the Soldier felt a faint stirring of hope burning like a lightning strike through him. His eyes darted around the room, confirming through Tanis’ grim expression that this wasn’t another hallucination. Ciri met his eyes briefly and he saw a matching fierceness lurking beneath her features, reminding him that he wasn’t the only one who’d lost a piece of their heart that day.

“Yennefer,” he rasped, “I’ll need healing.” He couldn’t risk some bodily weakness preventing him from getting his revenge, from completing his mission.

Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. It made him think that she must be just as eager to see Thanatos killed. “Tris is portalling here by the end of the night--she’s better at that sort of thing. We’ll need as much help as we can get.”

He nodded his acceptance and threw the covers back so he could settle his feet on the cold floor. Tanis came closer, surreptitiously allowing him to brace his weight against her when the pain made him suck in a sharp breath. Her fingers plucked at the shaggy hair he’d allowed to grow past his ears in soothing strokes. Somehow her continued silence held more weight than anyone else’s shouted protests.

“I have to do this,” Jaskier whispered, barely audible. “I  _ have _ to.”

She sighed, heavy with understanding. “I know.” Then Tanis leaned out the door, calling down the hall, “Kim! I’m gonna need you to cover the bar—we’ll be gone for a few days.”

There was a muffled curse from somewhere below them before a harried female voice shouted back, “ _ Again _ ?”

* * *

With Tris arriving a few hours later and Jaskier mostly healed from the worst of the injuries from his last hunt, there was little keeping them from moving forward in their plan to take down Thanatos. Much of that plan revolved around moving quickly enough to ensure none of the mage’s allies would get wind of their min-invasion and warn him that they were coming. Everything revolved around Tris and Yennefer’s ability to open portals to move the Soldier close to Thanatos’ base without his wards being triggered. This task was made more difficult by their limited knowledge of the region and what Thanatos’ base was fortified with. Jaskier tried not to think about how close one of his hunts had taken him to this section of the Continent. 

He managed to restock his damaged supplies and cobble together a few spare pieces of armor from the stash he’d left behind in the loft he’d once lived in. He’d been careful not to look over at the collection of precious objects he’d once cradled for hours while memories of another life flashed behind his eyes. Even now Geralt’s ghost seemed to linger close, warning and watchful all at once.

When he padded down from his old loft, he ignored the way Yennefer went tense and wary at the sight of him. Ciri’s spine stiffened in an effort not to shrink away from the creature that had once attacked her family, too brave to show any fear in front of such a predator. The Soldier ignored them in favor of looking over at Tanis.

“Stay,” he bit out. Her face went sharp with outrage, but he continued, “You need to be safe.”

Tanis looked mulish. “Someone needs to watch out for you.”

_ They won’t, _ she didn’t say. 

He summoned up the bard’s old talent for words with some effort. A hand, scarred and calloused in ways a court flower would never allow reached out to gently touch her cheek. He leaned down to press his forehead against hers. “Please,” he whispered, “I can’t lose you too.”

Tanis’ hand came up to circle his wrist in the gentlest of chains. “You aren’t coming back, are you?”

Instead of answering, he shifted slightly to brush his lips over her forehead, breathing in the scent of home and family for the last time. Her fingers tightened around his wrist for a moment before she took a deep breath and released him. Another breath and she stepped back enough to expose the dampness in her eyes and the stubborn tilt of her jaw.

He watched her go and pretended it didn’t feel like losing something precious.

Then he turned to the two sorceresses waiting a few yards away. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Whatever part of him that expected Thanatos to be lurking inside some sort of crypt was disappointed by the simple, well-maintained manor house nestled in the foothills of the nearby mountains. A small barn boasted a few clucking chickens and the sweet smell of hay while the garden behind the home was dotted with a few green sprouts stubbornly holding on despite the encroaching winter. There were none of the sprawling hedge gardens or sculptures that had littered Stregobor’s mansion and part of him was grateful for the details that helped him differentiate between the two. 

Yennefer’s portal deposited them a little over a mile away and he was grateful that neither of the women were dressed in their usual court finery as they slowly crept closer. For his part, he circled their position in widening passes designed to ensure that there were no traps left for them to trigger or vampires lying in wait. The familiar pattern of the hunt helped settle the writhing mass of anger that had been his only companion for the last two years and the lingering ache of the quick attempt at healing his injuries without proper rest.

When he made his final pass, the Soldier allowed himself the pleasure of reappearing beside the two mages without a sound just for the satisfaction of watching them jump. “It’s clear.”

“You’re sure?” Tris asked.

He didn’t bother to respond to the question. “I can’t get close enough to the house without risking tripping any wards.”

“What are the odds that he knows we’re coming?” Yennefer mused to the woman beside her.

“If the Witchers were his biggest enemy, he may believe he’s safe.”

The Soldier shook his head, thinking of how many vampire nests he’d destroyed in his quest to find Thanatos. Yennefer barely glanced at him before she agreed with his silent protest. “He’s too smart not to consider the possibility of someone avenging the Witcher Schools.”

“Are there any active covens nearby?” 

This time the Soldier answered before Yennefer could, “The closest one Vesemir knew of was at least 20 miles south of here.”

Yennefer hummed, thoughtful as she eyed the unassuming house. “He might have kept a few nearby for security. Are there any villages close enough for them to feed?”

“There’s Rosevein to the east and Midrest. Someone would have noticed if villagers were going missing.”   
  


“But who would they call?” Yennefer mused, a bitter twist to her full lips, “There aren’t any Witchers left to save them.”

The Soldier growled subvocally at the reminder.

The sound made the violet-eyed mage turn her attention to him. “How would you do it? If you were going to kill him on your own?”

“Wait til nightfall when even mages struggle to see, but before vampires typically awaken,” he said quickly, “Magic takes time and preparation and too many mages think it will protect them from a blade. If you can get me inside, I’ll finish this.”

“You think you can handle a mage that powerful on your own?”

The smile he gave her had no humor. “It wouldn’t be my first time.”

He pretended not to notice the way both mages had become tense and brittle beneath their glamour of disinterest. If he focused his senses, he could hear the way their hearts began to race with the same adrenaline that had a curl of sweat running down Tris’ neck. He knew they didn’t need the reminder that there was already a monster in their midst. 

None of that mattered so long as he got his hands around Thanatos’ neck.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Tris said, taking a steadying breath that spoke of her own courage. If there was anything left of the bard he’d once been, he’d be grateful for the loyalty that brought her this far for the Witcher who’d once saved a princess. 

Yennefer nodded. “We can move closer and surround the house--take out any sentries we see along the way.”

The Soldier didn’t bother to respond, just moved away from the two mages to make his way to the farthest side of the manor grounds. He forced himself to avoid any foliage or fallen leaves that might have given away his position and ensured he reached a good location as dusk began to fall.

Inside the manor, a few lanterns flickered to life, making it easier to catch the outline of a few figures within. He identified at least four different people moving through the rooms although it was impossible to tell if Thanatos was one of them. His fingers toyed with the largest knife he carried, flipping it over his fingers in a familiar pattern as he considered how he would proceed. 

He wanted to make sure the suffering he unleashed was greater than his own. That would take time.

When the sun was only a few minutes from setting, he moved forward on silent feet. He padded around the barn, careful not to disturb the hens roosting for the night, and moved to the side entrance. There was none of the scent of chaos that usually indicated a ward in place, but he still ignored the wooden door in favor of reaching for the sun-warm bricks beside it. A building this old made it easy to pull himself up to the small balcony on the second floor. Too many people didn’t bother to consider an attack might begin somewhere besides their front door.

He reached into the pocket of his pants to produce a small, oil soaked rag that he used to grease the hinges of the old door to avoid any unwanted noise. The action was rewarded by a silent entrance into the house. The Soldier listened hard for any sound of nearby heartbeat, but didn’t take their absence as proof that he was safe. He knew better than most what sort of creatures could lurk in the darkness.

The first proof of this came after he turned down the long hallway toward the staircase leading to the lower floors. A figure hurtled out of the shadows nearby, throwing him bodily into the wall, and he didn’t need to smell the fetid breath to know it was one of Thanatos’ vampires.

Jaws snapped above his face and he hastily threw up an arm to keep them from closing around his throat. Red eyes flashed and he could practically smell the beast’s hunger as they rolled across the floor, scrabbling for control. The first silver knife he pulled was ripped out of his hands before he could do more than slash across the vampire’s chest and the creature shrieked in triumph when they were forced to continue to grapple hand to hand, confident that it could overcome a simple human.

It made reaching out with both hands and breaking its neck even more satisfying.

The Soldier kicked the rapidly decaying corpse off of him and scowled down at the vampire. He could only hope that it hadn’t already alerted the entire household to his presence. Either way, he hurried his steps and listened hard for any sign of the other people who were in the manor. A terrified servant was the only other living creature he passed on the second floor and he narrowed his eyes at her in a silent threat that was answered with a fervent nod before he moved on.

There was a crash outside and he glanced through a window in time to see two more vampires rush Yennefer. The Soldier considered going out to help her, but just as quickly dismissed it. He had more important things to consider.

Downstairs he could better make out the sounds of fighting outside the manor, but he wasn’t concerned with the vampires called down as a distraction from their true enemy. He picked up the pace as he rounded the edge of the kitchens, pausing at the doorway when he heard a booted foot scuff over the tile.

It was the only thing that saved him from the blistering wave of chaos that blew through the wall inches in front of his face.

Instead of letting the blast warn him away, the Soldier rushed the newly made hole in the wall towards the figure standing silhouetted in the empty dining space. He dropped into a slide to avoid the next blast and tossed his knife in the air to shift into a throwing grip. The blade snapped through the air like an arrow, pinning the fabric of Thanatos’ sleeve to the wall behind him.

“I’m almost impressed,” Thanatos sneered. “Although you aren’t the person I expected to see come after me.

The Soldier’s iron control wavered beneath the heat of his fury.

“You took  _ everything _ from me.”

The mage smiled at him in a bored sort of way. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“You will,” Jaskier snarled as he lunged forward.

This time there was little finesse to the way they tore into one another. There was a burst of heat that raked across his jaw that left a burning line of pain that he ignored in favor of slamming the heel of his hand into the man’s solar plexus. Thanatos grunted and Jaskier followed the motion up with a brutal knee to the gut that left him retching on the air that left his lungs.

Without pausing in his assault, the Soldier batted away another hand outstretched in an attempt to cast another spell and rewarded the effort with a broken thumb. Thanatos stumbled back--unused to fighting in close combat--while the Soldier prowled forward and death followed with him.

Jaskier’s hands fisted in Thanatos’ shirt so he could lift him bodily into the air using the unholy strength Stregobor had given him just to watch his eyes go wide. “Tell me how to bring them back,” he bit out.

“No,” the other man sneered. “The world is better off without their disgusting--”   
  


His words were cut off in a scream of anguish as the Soldier sank a blade deep in his gut, staring into the human’s face with a small smile. When their eyes met, he made a point of twisting the knife until the mage made another raw sound.

“ _ Tell me _ .”

The sound of footsteps approaching made him glance over in time to see Yennefer approaching, a spray of blood marring the fabric of her dress but unharmed. “Soldier,” she said cautiously, “we still need him--”

A blow to his jaw snapped his head to the side and it was enough to loosen his grip from the front of Thanatos’ robes. The mage yanked himself out of his grasp and pulled the knife from his gut in an instant, backing away with the weapon outstretched like he intended to fight them both. The Soldier and Yennefer prowled forward, circling him.

“You should have gone for the head,” Thanatos mocked with blood in his teeth.

Then he plunged the blade into the fragile skin of his throat.

Yennefer rushed forward, but Jaskier was already skidding to his knees beside the mage’s body with his hands pressing into the bubbling wound like he could somehow heal the damage. Thanatos glared up at him with triumph in his eyes and Jaskier felt something inside of him break.

“No, no no  _ NO _ ,” he shouted, “You can’t, you can’t just get away with this. You have to pay for this.”

The heart beat beneath his fingers continued to slow.

“You deserved to suffer, you bastard!” Jaskier said as he abandoned the gaping wound in the mage’s neck to slam his fists against the other man’s chest. The body beneath him didn’t react aside from releasing a long breath of air and going limp. “It can’t end like this!”

“Jaskier,” Yennefer’s voice was soft.

“No! This can’t be how it ends.” A sob caught in his chest and came out in a strangled sound of rage and grief. “It  _ can’t _ .”

Tris came into the room and took in the bard and the dead mage with a soft gasp. She glanced over at Yennefer and her expression softened at the grief reflected there. “Jaskier, are you...Did he--?”

A bitter cold seemed to seep into the space where Thanatos and whatever hope of saving Geralt had once existed. He let it fill his mind and pushed the weeping, broken part of himself safely away from the world. Their grief was familiar now. His eyes fixated on the mage’s body for one more moment, confirming what he already knew.

Thanatos was dead.

Geralt wouldn’t be coming back. He’d failed his mission.

The Soldier stiffly got to his feet and stepped away from the body, uncaring of the blood that worked to cement him to the floor. He briefly considered reaching for the blade that had fallen to the ground, but knew he couldn’t use it without thinking of this moment. 

“Jaskier,” Yennefer said again, a little more urgently, “Jaskier, we knew there was a chance that he--”

Without responding, he pushed past the two women and out the door of the manor even when they continued to call his name. 

He didn’t look back.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry. 
> 
> (There will probably be only one more chapter after this--two at the most.)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know I said only one chapter, but I apparently can't help hurting this man.

Jaskier lost time.

It was no longer worth the effort of forcing his way up from the thoughts and memories that dragged him under with every step away from Thanatos’ manor. It hadn’t been until he’d watched the mage breathe his last that he realized how much hope he’d place on the man having some way to reverse his spell. To cobble together the ashes of Jaskier’s heart and replace it with a living, breathing Witcher.

All for it to fall apart in front of him.

His feet found a path that his mind refused to think about. The Soldier was, after all, programmed to keep itself alive regardless of how damaged it had become. Its mission had been a failure so it only made sense that he would return to the place where he had last felt at home.

The path beneath his feet angled upwards, scraping against the worn hole in the heel of his left boot. Each night, the world around him grew colder until his breath shivered out in a fine mist and his limbs refused to stop trembling. He kept walking with the same sort of dogged determination that came when he saw no other options, but to keep moving.

Keep moving until even he was worn down into dust.

* * *

The door to the tavern opened with a thump and a rush of cold air.

Tanis didn’t bother to look up, just kept scrubbing away at the stain on her countertop. Just as she had been for the past week. It was either that or pace the floor, snapping at anyone foolish enough to get in her way.

She growled when Kim called her name from the bar, but didn’t respond. By now all of her regulars were avoiding her, knowing her mood had only gotten worse since she’d allowed Jaskier to leave without her. 

Tanis knew better than anyone that Yennefer and the other mage had no reason to protect her boy. They only saw the Soldier as a monster, not as a prisoner of a cruel man’s agenda. They hadn’t spent months pretending not to hear him crying out at night when the nightmares lingered too closely or seen how hard he’d fought to cobble together the broken pieces of his mind. None of them cared because all they wanted was to unleash the very same weapon they were afraid to allow to live.

“Tanis!”

With a huff, she pushed away from the stain--probably an old scorch mark, if she was being honest--and grabbed a tray of clean glasses to take up to the front. She tried to school her features to keep from upsetting her newest hire. The girl had been a godsend as Tanis and Nora struggled to return to the mindset of running their business after all that had happened. She couldn’t risk losing her to her own bad temperedness.

Using her hip, she pushed through the rickety door that led to the main room, balancing the tray in one hand. “What is it--”

The plates fell to the ground in a cacophony of shattered glass as her hands flew to her mouth to smother a gasp.

A ghost stood before her, frowning as he scanned the room.

“Where is Jaskier?”

* * *

The crumbling spire of Kaer Morhen’s watchtowers was a familiar sight now even if he couldn’t remember the first time he walked through the massive gates when he was still just a bard.

The first winter, he hadn’t even realized he was heading back to the old keep until his feet had found the worn path leading upwards. He’d stood at the turnoff to the Killer for nearly an hour, contemplating turning back, before finally giving in to the call. A pilgrimage to the place where he’d once worshipped at the altar of the hope in his heart that one day the love he felt would be reflected back in a Witcher’s eyes.

It was its own delicate sort of torture to see the rooms and hear only the echo of his own footsteps through the cavernous hall. He avoided the abandoned bedrooms in the outer wings in favor of replacing his lost or broken weapons in the armory. The Soldier’s instincts had him pacing around the outer reaches of the keep to ensure that no one had entered since he’d left.

Then he would return to the Great Hall and begin the long process of fixing whatever needed to be pieced back together now that there was no one left alive to care for the old buildings. Yennefer had done some sort of magic that ensured Vesemir’s books remained well preserved and that no wild animals took up residence there. It was the closest thing to optimism that she could manage. As though she were keeping house in a way that would keep her in the oldest Witcher’s good graces if he were to suddenly return.

For his part, Jaskier liked to see for himself that the only home the Wolves had ever known was still as they’d left it. A monument to a group of warriors who’d given everything for the same humans who’d never welcomed them into their own cities and towns. It had been their shelter in life and would continue to protect their memory now.

He wondered who would care for it after he was gone.

* * *

“What do you mean, ‘ _ Where is Jaskier? _ ’” she demanded, something close to dread pooling in her stomach. “He should be with you!”

Tanis prowled forward, uncaring of the glass crunching beneath her feet. Her eyes darting behind Geralt to find a concerned looking Lambert and Eskel flanking him. “How is this possible?”

“We woke up in Kaer Morhen a week ago,” Eskel explained while Geralt looked like he was struggling to put words to what had happened to them. “It was as though nothing had happened--one minute we were there and the next...everything was different.”

“You’ve been gone for over two years,” she said flatly, answering the question none of them seemed able to voice. “You and the rest of the Witchers.”

“What do you mean ‘ _ gone’ _ ?” Geralt demanded. “Why isn’t Jaskier with you if he isn’t at Kaer Morhen?”

Tanis felt the faint stirrings of hope that had grown with the return of the Witchers from the dead disappear in a wave of nauseating panic. If Jaskier hadn’t returned to the tavern or Kaer Morhen after his fight with Thanatos, had he--?

Her fears must have shown on her face because Geralt took another step forward, hands clenched into fists at his side like he could avoid anyone noticing the way they were trembling. “Where is he?” he asked again and she hated herself for seeing the vulnerability behind each word.

“We need to find Yennefer. Quickly.”

* * *

Jaskier and the Soldier made their way into the keep like they were walking into a tomb. His footsteps echoed oddly against the stone walls, highlighting the lack of other noise there. The wind whistled through a hole in a broken window pane and he spared a thought for attempting to patch it before the winter worsened before he discarded it.

There was no point. No one was coming back here.

He was just a ghost haunting the space where his heart used to live. Like the noonwraiths he’d once helped Geralt hunt, he was just a spectre of the man he once was. Too stubborn and too foolish to accept the reality of the death he’d suffered years before. He wondered if years from now someone would be sent out to dispatch what was left of him too.

The Soldier took off the heavy sword he’d carried for so long and slowly stripped himself of all his weapons and armor. They made a small, blood soaked pile in the middle of one of the dusty table. The leather would probably rot and the metal rust without proper cleaning, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. If someone managed to climb the rugged cliffs they were welcome to sort out what could be saved on their own.

He briefly considered going to the underground caverns to clean off the blood and grime that had accumulated over the past few days, but dismissed the idea as a waste. Instead, he chose to go the opposite direction, up the stairs and into the rooms he’d been avoiding all this time.

With each step away from the bloodied pile of his gear, Jaskier let the protective shell of the Soldier peel away. It had kept him safe and alive for as long as he’d asked, but he knew this next step had to be his own. The Soldier was a creature designed to survive and so, could not truly contemplate the grief that would temper the bard’s path from here. He couldn’t keep hiding behind the Soldier’s emptiness. For the first time in years, Jaskier was truly alone.

His hand hesitated only once before pushing open the old, scarred door to reveal a room that smelled like dust with only the faintest him of cedar and leather. Instinctively, his eyes moved to the bed that seemed to tease him in its corner and he pretended he hadn’t memorized the way the covers were rumpled with the memory of their last morning lazily kissing before stumbling down to breakfast. Tears pricked at the edges of his vision and he rubbed the heel against his eyes until his vision blinked with red and black dots.

Oh all the times for his memories to return…

Jaskier made a wretched sound and shook his head. At least he wouldn’t be alone at the end of all things. He could pretend someone walked with him, just out of sight. He could pretend that the fireplaces weren’t cold and the rooms didn’t smell like dust and the wild creatures that were beginning to build homes here.

Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he walked over to the simple cedar chest sitting at the end of the bed. The wood felt familiar beneath his fingers even if he hadn’t dared to touch it in years. He took a deep breath and pushed it open, breathing in the sweet scent of the wood and the faded scent of the warrior beneath. Tears pricked at his eyes, ignored, as he reached out with a reverent hand to grab a simple dark shirt and pair of pants.

The sight of the dirt and faded blood on his hands made him pause long enough to turn to the pot of water on the dresser to scrub a rag over his body, ignoring the way the partially frozen water made him shiver. His breath plumed in front of him in pale clouds. Jaskier walked back to the chest and donned Geralt’s old clothes, wishing they were still body warm.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with cedar and dust and  _ home _ .

It had been so long since he’d felt anything but numb that he’s almost grateful for the burning ache in his chest. So long since he’d let himself linger here in this room where his heart had stopped beating even if his body stopped moving. 

Without conscious thought, he stepped closer to the bed and brushing his hands over the covers. He thought of the first time Geralt had brought him here, shy and nervous as any Witcher could be. Geralt had been so anxious that everything would be perfect for Jaskier in the only home the Witcher had ever known. He’d wanted to ensure that nothing painful would ever touch Jaskier here, that he’d be safe. Protected. Loved, scars and all. 

And Jaskier had believed him. Because Jaskier had never been disappointed by Geralt before, not when it was real, not when it mattered. 

Maybe that was why it had hurt so bad to have it all ripped away.

The thought twisted in his chest like a knife, burning and breaking away at his shrapnel heart. He curled into the blankets, knees to chest and wished he could sink back into the darkness that had kept him numb for so long. His lungs burned and twisted within the emptiness left behind by the loss of everything precious to him. Jaskier pulled the pillow that no longer smelled like Geralt and sobbed.

Eventually, like all things must, he went still. Sleep was elusive, darting out of his lax grip whenever he closed his eyes. Despite this, he felt his mind calm in a way that only came with bone deep exhaustion.

This was what he deserved, even if Geralt had not. He deserved to lay here with the scent of blood embedded in his skin, overwhelming the last traces of the Witcher, and listen to the silence around him, muffled by the snow outside. There were too many dark marks on his soul--too many reasons for the gods and man to curse his name. It was his mistake to assume it would be him that the fates decided to destroy. 

With that came the truth that Jaskier had spent two years trying to avoid--this was all his fault.

  
  
  


He lost time.

His stomach’s rumbling and cramping was easy to ignore now as was the slight ache in his spine from laying in the same position.

None of it mattered. Not anymore.

Jaskier closed his eyes and let himself sink into the memories. He let himself linger in the images and sensations that had dragged him back, body and soul, from Stregobor. He thought of the almost forgotten touch of a man trying to soothe away the sting of guilt and pain, replacing it with sunlit eyes and painfully beautiful smiles.

_ Jaskier. Please don’t make me do this. _

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

_ I loved you! _

I should have protected you, Geralt. I should have kept you safe.

The words made it easier to reach beneath the pillow at the head of the bed, to feel along the edge until his fingers found the leather hilt of the knife he’d stored there. The weight of it felt like the only thing connecting himself to the earth--that he would fly into the heavens and into the vacuum of space if he let go. He gritted his teeth and dragged it closer, uncaring of the way the edge scraped a long, thin line against his arm.

It fell the last few inches, sliding into the indent of his body against the mattress. The point pricked at the hollow of his throat in an eerie replica of what he intended.

_ Please, Jaskier. Please don’t do this. Don’t give up. _

You’re gone, he wanted to argue back at the memory of Geralt beside Dagan’s body. You’re gone and you can’t come back.

Instead, the scene was replaced with the image of the Witcher laying on the mattress across from him. There was none of the worry or fear that had tempered their last moments on earth together and Jaskier imagined he could still hear Ciri’s voice calling for them outside.

_ Would you?  _ The Witcher asked, voice silent as time took even that from Jaskier--but this Geralt didn’t know what it was like to disappear into ash. He just smiled at Jaskier and continued as the tears ran freely down the bard’s face.  _ Stay here with me forever? _

“Always,” Jaskier answered as the mirage vanished and he was alone in an empty keep once more. “Always.”

His fingers tightened on the knife.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will officially be the end. Stay tuned.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this would be the last chapter, but it was way too big for one chapter. So consider this the Finale: Part I.

_____________________________________

It was a marker of how fucked up Geralt’s life was that the most alarming memory he had wasn’t rematerializing in the middle of Kaer Morhen’s training yards after disappearing for over two years.

He’d come awake easy as any morning, blinking up at a grey sky and struggling to remember where he was and how he’d come to be there. There had been a mage...and vampires….

“Geralt? Eskel?”

At the sound of Lambert’s voice, Geralt turned instinctively towards him, grunting a little when his muscles protested the movement. The cold stone of the courtyard was bracing as he levered himself onto his knees and, finally, his feet. Around him, Kaer Morhen was silent as a tomb with not even a bird’s song to break the silence.

“I’m here, Lamb,” he called.

Where was Jaskier? Or any of the others for that matter? His memories skittered out of his reach and he frowned. Looking down confirmed no visible injuries, but he couldn’t remember how he came to be in this place.

A moment later Lambert came into view--harried and near frantic--and moved over to him. The younger Witcher looked almost terrified as he stumbled towards Geralt and reached out to grip his arm. “You’re okay?”

“What happened?” Geralt asked. “I just woke up out here.”

“I’ve been searching the keep. Tanis, Ciri--Geralt, I can’t find them.”

Something cold and terrible lodged itself in his chest, burning against his ribs like frostbite. “What do you mean--”

Someone groaned.

Immediately, both warriors snapped to attention. They moved as one towards the sound of scuffling, hurrying when familiarity chased away wariness. Geralt rounded the corner of the stables with flickering images of blood and Eskel falling beneath the weight of the creatures attacking him.

_ A medallion, dripping with blood, in the hands of a stranger-- _

“Eskel!” Lambert called again. 

In the shadow of the now-empty stable, he spotted the body of his brother, shifting weakly. Lambert dropped to his knees beside him, skidding against the rough stones of the courtyard. His hands brushed over Eskel’s chest, seeking the wound responsible for the blood staining his shirt. Geralt pulled off his own bloodied shirt to try to create a pressure bandage only to stop when Eskel waved them off.

“I’m fine,” he grunted, “Confused as all fuck, but I’m not hurt.”

Lambert frowned, pulling up the ruined shirt to expose Eskel’s scarred chest. “I don’t understand...if you’d lost this much blood, you shouldn’t be alive.”

“I thought I was.”

“You remember then?” Geralt asked. He leaned back on his heels and scanned the courtyard. “My memories are hazy.”

“I remember fighting vampires and going down. I remember knowing that I was dying.” Lambert made a soft sound and Eskel reached out to squeeze his shoulder in silent comfort.

“There was a mage,” Geralt said slowly, looking back at the courtyard. “He led the attack.”

Lambert looked contemplative. “I was inside. WIth Ciri and Tanis. I don’t think they took the keep.”

Geralt got to his feet, starting toward the building with fear churning in his gut. “Jaskier!” he called, shouting over the silence, “Ciri! Tanis! Nora!”

Nothing.

He looked around again and realized even the bodies of the creatures had been gone. Around him, the air tasted of the oncoming winter in spite of his memories of warm summer breezes the day before the attack. Even the keep seemed to smell of the same emptiness and silence that continued to build with every passing second.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Where could they be?”

“The whole keep is emptied.” Lambert came to stand beside him, Eskel flanking. “It looks like it’s been abandoned.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Where would they go then? If we were lost?” Eskel’s voice was matter of fact--always the quickest of them to look for solutions amid chaos.

Geralt latched onto his brother’s calm like an anchor. “Jaskier would go back to the tavern with Tanis and Nora. It’s the only other place they would feel safe.”

“Why not Yennefer?” Lambert asked, but Geralt was already shaking his head and hurrying toward the keep to gather what supplies he could.

“Yennefer only sees the Soldier when she looks at him--she would never allow him to be near Ciri long term.”

  
  


Their mad dash toward Tanis’ tavern was hampered by the lack of horses left behind in the stables. Geralt hoped like hell that the women had merely taken Roach with them and that the mare hadn’t been another casualty in the battle that had taken place there. They moved as quickly as they could, pushing even their enhanced stamina to the breaking point. It served a dual purpose of giving them little energy to dedicate to the endless stream of questions or the growing knot of panic in his chest.

_ Where was Jaskier? _

He could remember the Soldier fighting alongside them with that eerie focus that always proved when the bard was no longer in command. They’d been fighting only feet away from one another when the mage had cast his spell. He knew he’d called out to him moments before the world went black around him. Then there was nothing but the confusion of waking up alone.

When the tavern finally came into sight, Geralt nearly collapsed with relief. Exhausted and riding the edge of panic that had been their only companion on the long trail away from Kaer Morhen, he didn’t bother to wait for Lambert and Eskel to try to catch up before he was racing toward Tanis’ tavern. His eyes darted over the familiar stables like he could see through the doors to find Jaskier, but angled toward the main building instead. At this time of night, Jaskier would be busy helping bus tables and washing dishes ferried in by Nora and Tanis.

The door felt warm and solid against his palm as he shoved it open, ignoring the way it rattled on its hinges in favor of moving into the room beyond. Immediately, the room fell silent as the villagers turned to the source of the noise. He tried to ignored the wave of disappointment when he realized that Jaskier wasn’t one of them.

Still determined, he moved over to where a young woman was watching the commotion with wary eyes. She was younger than Nora, but bore the same fierceness that seemed to be a hallmark with women in this region. That, or they’d learned from Jaskier and the others that Witchers weren’t as terrifying as they seemed.

“Where is Tanis?” he asked brusquely, flicking a glare at the humans still trying to subtly eavesdrop. 

_ What if she’s gone too?  _ An insidious voice whispered.  _ What if they’re all dead and gone? _

The girl narrowed her whiskey colored eyes and paused with a glass in her hand, looking like she was considering kicking him out if he proved to be a problem. “Who wants to know?”

He was torn between a begrudging sort of respect for the woman’s willingness to put her safety on the line to protect Tanis and the overwhelming need to throttle her to get the information he needed. 

At his side, Eskel set a soothing hand on his arm, smiling a little at the barmaid. “He’s Geralt of Rivia and I’m Eskel,” he nodded toward the last Witcher who looked like he was contemplating taking the woman to the nearest room, “That lout’s Lambert.”

“Kim.” She looked a little mollified with the offered information, setting the cup down to give the youngest Witcher a blatant once over that made his ears turn red. A small smirk crooked at her lips--there and gone in the time it took her to refocus on Geralt. “What do you want with Tanis?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

Kim frowned at him before a look of shock swept over her features. “You’re the Witcher. Jaskier’s Geralt.”

Hope burned, hot and fierce. “Is he here? I need to see him.”

“Oh, oh fuck,” she whispered then turned on her heel, shouting towards the back. “Tanis!  _ TANIS _ !”

The door opened a moment later to reveal a frazzled looking Tanis carrying a stack of plates. “What is it---”

The plates hit the ground with a crash.

Geralt crossed the distant, near frantic now that he could see that at least one of their scattered family was alive and well.  _ “Where is Jaskier?” _

  
  
  
  


“What do you mean, ‘ _ Where is Jaskier? _ ’ He should be with you!” she said, face going pale. 

She moved closer, looking tired and every one of her years as her eyes scanned over his face like she was expecting some kind of trick. That quickly the growing wonder was replaced by the sharp focus he’d come to expect from her. “How is this possible?”

Before Geralt could try to impatiently find the words to explain, Eskel cut in. “We woke up in Kaer Morhen a week ago. It was as though nothing had happened--one minute we were there and the next...everything was different.”

“You’ve been gone for over two years,” Tanis said slowly, hands coming down to anchor herself to the counter. “You and the rest of the Witchers.” 

Impossible. If they’d been gone for two years, that would mean--

_ Please, no. Not him. _

“What do you mean ‘ _ gone’ _ ?” he asked hoarsely. “Why isn’t Jaskier with you if he isn’t at Kaer Morhen?”

Tanis’ expression made whatever hope was still in him die a quick death. He felt the earth tilting oddly beneath his feet, a new terror threatening to drown him.

His voice was raw with it as he looked at her for the answer to the question he was too afraid to ask. “Where is he?”

“We need to find Yennefer,” Tanis said, turning to hide her own expression and lead them toward the back rooms, “Quickly.”

“What about Ciri?” Eskel asked, “And Nora?”

“Better to answer all of your questions at once.”

Geralt stumbled after her, braced by a silent Geralt and a somber looking Lambert at his back. He felt like he wasn’t able to focus on anything but the pity in the other woman’s expression. Like she’d already processed her own grief.

In the kitchen, she immediately crossed over to a weathered looking hutch and pulled open one of the cabinets. He wanted to ask her what she could possibly be doing when he didn’t even know if Jaskier was...if they could find his bard again, but couldn’t seem to shape the words. It was worse than the mountain, worse than seeing the Soldier for the first time. At least then, he’d known what had happened, or thought he had. Now, he was left imagining how much could have happened in two years without Geralt there to protect him.

Oh gods, Jaskier must have thought he was  _ dead _ . He thought about the last moments before his world had gone dark, of the panic on Jaskier’s face as he tried to bridge the distance between them. He tried to imagine what it would be like to lose Jaskier after fighting for so long to be by his side.

Tanis made a sound of triumph a second later and held up a piece of gaudy looking jewelry. It gleamed dully in her hand, prompting a scowl from him. He wished he still had the medallion he’d worn since the first days after the Trials to tell him whether it was magic or happenstance that sent her after this necklace.

She answered his silent question a moment later when she blew her breath over the colored glass, cupping her hands around it and speaking clearly, “Ciri, I need you.”

Geralt took a step forward, relief and confusion warring within him. The news that Ciri was safe was like a balm and answered one of the millions of questions still churning in his head. “She’s…?” his voice was oddly strangled.

Tanis nodded. “She’s fine. No one was hurt in the attack.”

_ Except you _ , she didn’t say.

A few moments later, Geralt heard the soft crackle of power and displaced air that experience told him signaled a portal opening nearby. Tanis led the way out to the dusty courtyard between the tavern and the stables in time to see Ciri and a miffed looking Yennefer stepping through. He watched the moment they scanned the courtyard and realized who was standing there.

Then Ciri was shouting his name and running across the courtyard in an echo of the first time they’d met. He found himself stepping forward to meet her, wrapping his arms around her in a bone-jarring hug. Mentally, he was already tracking the changes in the teenager since he’d last seen her. She was taller, more muscular than the girl of his memories. 

“How is this possible?” Yennefer was asking the others from a few feet away. “You were...I  _ saw-- _ ”

“I don’t give a fuck how they got back as long as they stay.” Tanis was looking at Yennefer like she was considering taking a swing at her and Geralt looked at the mage with cautious suspicion. “Right now, we need to find Jaskier.”

He knew as soon as Yennefer went silent that she didn’t have the answers they wanted. Her mouth opened and closed without sound, violet eyes flicking between Geralt and the other Witchers.

“Where is he, Yenn?” 

“I…” she closed her mouth and clenched her jaw, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t know. He disappeared after we killed Thanos.”

“Who the fuck is Thanos?” Lambert whispered to Ciri, but Geralt ignored him.

“Was he hurt? How long ago did you last see him?”

Ciri shifted so she could watch them both, looking somber. “They killed Thanos over a week ago, Geralt. We thought he would have come back here.”

“Why weren’t you with him?” he demanded, eyes blazing as he glared at his former lover. “Did you even bother to see if he was hurt before you let him walk away?”

Yennefer stiffened, anger coloring her expression. “I am not his handler. The Soldier--”

“ _ Jaskier _ .”

“ _ \--Jaskier _ is capable of taking care of himself,” she bit out. 

Geralt was considering the merits of starting a brawl in the middle of this courtyard when Tanis stepped between them, looking equally furious.

“Activate it,” she ordered.

Yennefer frowned at her, eyes flicking back and forth between the woman and the Witcher at her back. “Excuse me?”

“I know you put a tracker on Jaskier. It’s how you knew he was here the last time you needed him to bleed for you,” she snarled, “Now you need to use it to find him.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww yiss--time to see if Jaskier's okay. :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, an ending is the hardest thing to write. I hope it was worth waiting for.

Immediately, Yennefer’s expression went flat in a way that Geralt recognized as a symptom of the mage’s growing defensiveness. Her violet eyes flicked over to where Geralt was waiting with barely restrained impatience.

“I…” she hesitated.

“Please, Yenn,” Geralt said, damning his pride to the growing panic that something had happened. “I need to find him.”

The mage sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. “After we killed Thanos, the Soldier was...upset,” she began, “He thought the mage being dead would somehow fix everything.”

Absently, he wondered if perhaps Jaskier had been right to hope for such a thing. A glance to the other Witchers confirmed that they agreed with his theory.

“I was worried he might become more unstable--”

“Don’t pretend that the tracker is new addition to your dedication to believing he’s a killer,” Tanis hissed.

“He  _ is _ a killer,” Yennefer growled back, “I know more than anyone.”

“And yet somehow you continue to curse us with your presence.”

It was obvious that the relationship between the two of them had only gotten worse without Geralt there to act as a buffer.

The Witcher angled himself between the two of them, trying to distract them from the brewing violence while he was still trying to find Jaskier. “Where does the tracker say he is?”

Now, Yennefer’s face went curiously blank. “I don’t know. It stopped working a few days ago.”

“And you didn’t think to check on what might have happened?” Tanis accused.

“I went to the last location, but the Soldier wasn’t there. He must have removed the tracking spell somehow so I wouldn’t know which way he went from there.”

Jaskier must have known Yennefer had put a trace on him and chosen to keep it to assuage the mage’s need to keep an eye on him. Without returning to his life as an assassin, Jaskier and the Soldier had no need to hide their whereabouts and it would keep Yennefer from continuing to hunt for him and potentially interrupting his plans with unnecessary conflicts. It didn’t take much to guess what must have changed.

He didn’t want to think about what Jaskier intended to do next.

“Where did the trace stop?” he asked.

“A road heading north. If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume he was returning to Kaer Morhen, but he hasn’t gone there since last year. He usually only goes back to the keep when winter hits.”

A silent vigil for a dead school of Witchers.

“Do you think that’s where he went now?”

She shrugged, looking dismayed. “He thought you were all dead. We all thought that.”

It was as close to an apology as they would get from her.

He didn’t want to think about why he would need one.

Eskel stepped forward. “We can search the path between here and there. Maybe he was heading back toward Tanis’ inn. Lambert can look further north. We have to make sure that we don’t jump to conclusions before we know what happened.”

Geralt swallowed down the fear that threatened to drown him and nodded. “Can you open a portal to Kaer Morhen? Maybe we missed him on our way here.”

Yennefer looked relieved at the prospect of making this right and barely hesitated before agreeing. Ciri gave her an approving look before reaching out to hold Geralt’s arm. “He’s a survivor. He’ll survive this too.”

The Witcher doesn’t have the heart to correct her.

Jaskier was the strongest man he’d ever known. He’d survived the dangers of the Path as a human and all of the horrors Dagan and Stregobor had meted out as the Soldier. Since their deaths, Jaskier had proven again and again that he was more than the vapid, flighty bard he’d once assumed him to be. He was something eternal, forged in the kind of steel that only a soul of a true warrior could wield.

The problem came in just where that core of iron and sheer will was anchored. Unlike Geralt--who’d always preferred to avoid the kind of attachments that made loss inevitable--Jaskier put his whole heart and body on the line for anyone lucky enough to earn his loyalty. No one knew this more than Geralt. Jaskier had been willing to throw himself off the mountain for the chance to keep a surly, uncompromising Witcher from dying despite the years of disrespect and callous disregard he’d shown him. Even the Soldier had dragged himself from the brink to drag Geralt out of the rubble and keep him alive. 

Over and over again, Jaskier proved that his anchor in this world was Geralt. It was Geralt who’d always needed Jaskier and the humanity he always seemed to be able to inspire with his irrepressible spirit. When Jaskier had lost himself beneath the Soldier’s mentality, it was Geralt who showed him what he had to live for. They remained each other’s lodestone amidst the hurricane of destruction destiny had unleashed on them.

With his vengeance on Thanos complete and no Geralt to continue reaching out for, what was left to keep Jaskier from falling off the edge once more?

He imagined how Jaskier might consider the slow decay of ties to the world around him. For all her protective fury, Tanis had had a life before Jaskier had stumbled into it. A daughter and her business, surrounded by a town that loved her. Ciri was already safely tucked away beneath Yennefer’s steely eyes, carefully guarded from the man the mage would never fully trust again. Like a boat adrift at sea, Jaskier had become untethered.

“Open the portal,” he said quickly before nodding at the other Wolves, “Contact me immediately if you come across him first. Keep an eye out for Vesemir too. We need to be sure that everyone came back with us.”

“I’ll send word to the other Schools as well,” Yennefer offered. She walked to the same clear area where she and Ciri had first arrived and began the process of creating another portal. 

Ciri remained standing next to Geralt, pensieve. “You won’t...you’ll come back, right?”

He closed his eyes and wished he didn’t know exactly why she felt like she had to ask. Behind him, the portal crackled to life, but he ignored it in favor of dragging his child of destiny against his chest and wrapping his arms around her. He breathed in a lungful of lavender and the clean scent of the child she was quickly growing out of and hoped that he would be able to return to her without another reason for her to grieve.

“I will.”

* * *

_ “Jaskier!” _

His voice echoed across the deserted keep, bouncing off the stone walls and scorched flagstones. “Jas!”

He told himself not to panic at the continued silence or the signs of disuse he’d ignored when he’d first returned in the courtyard. The sky was the same cloudy grey that he recognized as a precursor to the coming cold and snows that marked the majority of his memories about the keep. There was a thin layer of dirt that marked what the place looked like without Vesemir there to ensure it was maintained to his standards. He realized he hadn’t asked whether Roach had been recovered from the stables as he jogged to the stables and found them covered in cobwebs and the scent of rotting hay.

Geralt’s heart thundered in his ears as he continued his search. Next was the bailey, the armory, the outer walls--all the while hunting for some kind of evidence that Jaskier had come here recently. All of it remained as abandoned as their first moments here indicated.

“Jaskier!” he repeated with a raw throat and flickering hope in his chest.

Hardening his resolve, he turned, finally, towards the keep itself. He told himself he was saving it for last because it was likely that Jaskier would leave some evidence of his presence outdoors--not because he was afraid of what sort of trail he would find indoors.

There was only one room where a grieving bard would spend his time.

“Jaskier,” he breathed as he walked up the stairs to where their room was, “Come on, baby. Answer me.”

At the top of the stairs, he breathed in the scent of dust and faraway ash before crossing over to the room that had been his for the last century--now his and Jaskier’s.

Inside, everything was almost exactly as he remembered from his last morning with his bard. There was his spare shirt tossed over the chair to dry after Lambert and Ciri had decided to start an impromptu water fight instead of doing dishes the night before. His chest with the few belongings he kept at the keep was still closed at the foot of the bed. Even the covers were still tousled from where they’d laid tangled together until Ciri had called them down for breakfast.

He took a breath--fighting back his rising disappointment--and froze.

Amidst the dust that layered over everything, there was the familiar smell of blood.

Too terrified to think past the white noise in his mind, Geralt moved over to the bed. His hands shook as he gently pulled back the top blanket, noting absently that it showed signs of being moved recently to expose the mattress beneath. Something fell to the floor with a dull thunk and he looked down to find a dagger with a faint trace of blood along one edge.

Blood that matched the stain on the sheets.

Geralt fell to his knees beside the mattress, hand outstretched above the stain like the body it’d once belonged to was invisible above it.  _ This was his fault, _ a voice whispered.  _ This was all his fault. _

He should have left Jaskier to live his life in peace in Tanis’ barn. He should have warned him about Stregobor and kept him far away from mages. He should have told him to stay behind in Posada instead of allowing a baby faced bard to follow him on a Path that was never meant to leave survivors. 

Anything to keep himself from living with the knowledge that every drop of blood on these sheets was as much his fault as if he’d held the knife.

“It’s been awhile.”

The flat voice was so unexpected that, for a moment, Geralt thought he’d imagined it. That didn’t stop him from whirling around to face the ghost standing silhouetted in the doorway.

Jaskier looked worse than Geralt could remember seeing him. Even when Stregobor had taken him, the mage had been careful to keep the assassin in good enough shape that he could continue to be useful for him. Now, the bard’s cheeks were sunken. The skin was dull, stretched tightly sharp cheekbones and marked with dark circles beneath eyes that watched Geralt with a faint sheen of apprehension.

The bard walked across the room to drop the pile of firewood in his arms onto the ground before crouching down to begin stacking it to be lit. 

“Usually I have to drink for a few hours before you show up,” he continued as if Geralt had answered.

“Jaskier.”

The man’s hands trembled, giving away the truth beneath his cavalier attitude. He took a deep breath that was visible beneath the baggy shirt-- _ Geralt’s _ shirt--that hung around a body too thin to fill it out anymore.

“I didn’t go through with it, you know,” he said a moment later, “I knew you would be upset if I did.”

Geralt’s throat went tight at how close he’d come to walking in on Jaskier’s rotting corpse. His vision wavered, signalling that it had been too long since he’d last dared to breathe and risk disturbing the specter in front of him.

Jaskier turned away from the fireplace to frown at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“I came back.”

The former bard made a rough sound--too jaded to pretend to be a laugh. “That’s new.” He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair. “I must be getting worse if I can’t keep up with what a hallucination is going to say to me.”

“I’m not a hallucination.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt repeated, heartbreak in every familiar syllable. He stood and walked closer, hands outstretched. “I came back for you.”

“Don’t.” This time Jaskier’s voice trembled and the Witcher watched a tear drip down his cheek as Geralt continued to advance. “I kept my promise. I--I didn’t go through with it.”

“You didn’t--Jaskier, it’s me. I promise.”

Geralt continued moving forward even when the assassin’s eyes darted toward the door like he was considering running. The raw desolation in his eyes made something terrible and fragile break inside of him. He didn’t want to think about what Jaskier had meant about not going through with it. He didn’t want to think about how close he might have come to losing everything--or how terrible it might have been for Jaskier to think that he had.

He took in the minute changes that marked the time that had passed while Geralt was...gone. There were tiny lines bracketing his eyes and a glassy look to the familiar blue. Worse was the trapped, animalistic gleam that marked just how much the disappearance of the Witchers must have affected him. It was obvious that he was not at Kaer Morhen with the expectation of doing anything but biding his time until death took him.

“I’m here,” he whispered, wishing he could craft the words that could chase away the beasts that lurked in the mind. “I’m back.”

“You...That’s impossible.” Jaskier’s chin tilted in stubborn defiance, clinging to the same brittle control that seemed to keep all the broken parts of himself in place. “You’re never coming back.”

Geralt shook his head gently. “We woke up in the courtyard a few days ago. I--Yennefer thinks that without Thanatos to anchor the curse it released us. I thought you’d be with Tanis, but...I, I had to find you.”

The bard’s expression went blank even if his voice couldn’t quite contain the same desolation of the last battlement of a long-forgotten castle. “I couldn’t go back,” he whispered.

He tried not to think about what it meant that Jaskier had stepped away from each of his ties to this world. Too broken and too scarred to contemplate pretending he could remain surrounded by humanity when his own was so often in question.

“Please….” Geralt said softly, throat tight. “Please, Jaskier. You’re scaring me.”

“I should.” Those eyes remained fixed on the Witcher like he was afraid to look away. Like Geralt might disappear if he blinked. “I should have scared you all along.”

“Never.” 

The word is vehement, instant. It was no more or less true now than when he’d stood across from the Soldier with Stregobor’s smile at the edge of his vision. Or when dark spots filled his vision and gravity pulling him down to the rocks below. It was a certainty forged from years of traveling along a Path drought with dangers and through countless close calls and bitter loss. Theirs was a relationship forged in silver and steel, tempered through the blood spilled over an unforgiving earth.

“You’re mine, Jaskier,” Geralt said, repeating the promise he’d whispered so long ago. “Always.”

“I’m yours,” came the tremulous reply, soft as an unspoken dream. “And you’re mine.”

He wasn’t sure which of them moved first--only that his arms were suddenly full of a familiar weight that seemed to send his soul snapping back into place.

His fingers found an anchor in the faint divots of his spine through his shirt, pressing him close enough that Geralt could feel the beat of his heart against his ribs. He felt Jaskier’s fingers dig deep enough to bruise, but didn’t begrudge him the comfort. His lungs were full of the scent of petrichor and mountain snow that marked Jaskier’s path outside of the keep and into the woods beyond. He could hear the shuddering gasps the bard wasn’t able to quite smother in the fabric of Geralt’s shirt, echoed by the raw catch in his own throat. 

The Witcher wrapped his arms more tightly around his bard and told himself that he would never let go. That he would stay here in the shelter of the fortress of his youth and carve out a new home for the both of them, safe from the shadows that lurked in their eyes.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he whispered softly.

Jaskier’s breath was hot against the skin of his throat. “Will you stay?”

“Always.”

**The End**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading through this long, angsty adventure. Your patience and support have kept this story alive. A special thanks to my amazing friends on Discord for convincing me that I needed to keep writing and listening to my whining. I love you all.
> 
> If you've enjoyed this story, there's even more completed and in-progress works on this account. You can also come chat with me on tumblr @geraskierficrecs if that's your thing.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think and what you're hoping will happen next!


End file.
